


Blame It on the Goose

by almaasi



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett, Untitled Goose Game (Video Game)
Genre: Accidental Kissing, Alternate Universe - Human, Alternate Universe - The Soulmate Goose of Enforcement, Artist Aziraphale (Good Omens), Aziraphale’s gay as a tree full of monkeys on nitrous oxide and just rolls with it, Crack, Crack Treated Seriously, Crossover, Crowley falls in love in one (1) day, Domestic Fluff, First Kiss, Fluff, Gardener Crowley (Good Omens), Gay Aziraphale (Good Omens), Illustrated, Ineffable Husbands (Good Omens), Lonely Aziraphale (Good Omens), M/M, Mindless Fluff, Neighbors, Other, Romance, Schmoop, no bastard goose knowledge required, nobody is demiromantic in this one, small town antics, town meetings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-04
Updated: 2019-10-04
Packaged: 2020-12-01 20:15:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 19,434
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20886581
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/almaasi/pseuds/almaasi
Summary: Village shenanigans AU where neighbours Aziraphale and Crowley are given the runaround by a particularly rude goose.Or:When Anthony J. Crowley moves to a pleasant English village, he expects to begin a peaceful life, gardening and minding his own business. He pretends not to notice his new neighbour, some flamboyant toff named Azira-something, who seems to do nothing but eat, and illustrate birds. But there’s a horrible goose on the loose, and it and its friends are causing a disturbing amount of havoc. Stealing shoes, squashing flowers, unlocking gates, tangling hosepipes... and sending Crowley out of the house with no clothes on in the middle of the night to borrow some underpants from the aforementioned neighbour. The entire population of Lower Tadfield is in uproar over these innocent-looking monsters. Something must be done! If Aziraphale and Crowley have to team up to defeat a gaggle of psychotic geese, so be it. And if they happen to like each other more than expected, so be that, too. What good is a peaceful life without a dear friend, anyhow?





	1. Goose on the Loose

**Author's Note:**

> Here’s some bastard goose _**v**_ flash bastard _**x**_ just enough of a bastard to be worth knowing. <3 It’s GOOSE OMENS.
> 
> **Warning** for some alcoholic tipsiness. Lowkey mentions of Crowley being in Witness Protection, except it’s so lowkey it’s basically not even a thing. A goose fact: white bread (or scones) will make geese and ducks sick, and their poop then poisons the water. Do not feed them bread!!!! Do not!!!
> 
> Working title was “Disturber of the Geese”, but as much as I enjoyed the pun, I kept forgetting the title. So this fic is now named after [this dubbed trailer from the Untitled Goose Game](https://almaasi.tumblr.com/post/188105706115/dollsahoy-jefframos-did-i-cut-a-trailer-for) (and the song ["Juice" by Lizzo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XaCrQL_8eMY)). Fic concept lightly inspired by [“Bovine Rage” by ToEdenAndBackAgain](https://archiveofourown.org/works/20008978).
> 
> Beta’d by Katie and Amara. Three honks for them!!

  


The hedges were a good height around here. Just short enough to peer over, for surreptitious snooping purposes, but tall enough that from a distance, Crowley’s neighbour was unlikely to see anything of him but a flaming head of auburn hair, as he paced about on his new lawn in bare feet, mobile phone in hand. Nobody would see anything of Crowley’s frown.

One thing a hedge could not do, however, was muffle his muttering.

There was a lot of muttering to be done. Half of it was swear words.

Sunset faded. Fiery colours were consumed now behind the hilltops, leaving the air a somber violet, warmth soft on the skin, but with a pleasant tingle of coolness whenever Crowley swept around again, striding back towards his cottage.

The sweetness of a blackbird’s song or the happy chirps of a dozen sparrows from the hedgerows in the lane were not sweet or happy enough to soothe Crowley. His agitation flared when a fluffy white head appeared on the other side of the hedge.

“Oh, hallo,” said the fluffy white head.

Crowley grunted. The only people he wanted to speak to were the dunces at the moving company – and even that was a questionable want, as what he _actually_ wanted to do was throw them into a deep well with a rope and a grappling hook and see how long it took them to climb back out. Point being, meeting his new neighbour was not high on his list of priorities.

“You must be Crawly,” the head said, which now included a pair of interested eyeballs, and a cute button nose. “How lovely to meet you.”

Crowley stuffed his phone into his jeans pocket, stomping up to the hedge. “What are you, then?” he demanded. “Ice-cream inventor? Lawn-decorator? Tree-tickler?”

“Beg your pardon?”

“Everyone around here’s got some soft, cushy, useless pastime, what’s yours?”

“Ah. Well?” The fellow seemed caught out. “I _was_ a principal. A head teacher.”

“Of what?”

“Of a school. A boarding school.”

“But you’re not now.”

“No. I’d had quite enough of all that. I live a quiet life, these days. Early retirement, I suppose you might say.”

Crowley hummed a flat note. “Me too.” He leaned an elbow on the hedge top, which smushed a little under his weight. He glared at the stranger. “And let me guess, now you match people’s socks.”

The stranger seemed stumped, but said, in a hopeful tone, “I illustrate books, actually.”

“_Do_ you, now,” Crowley murmured, looking down to check his phone. No messages. Barely a signal, either.

“Children’s storybooks and scientific textbooks,” the man volunteered. “I specialise in bird drawings.”

Crowley glanced at him carelessly. “Hm.”

“My name’s Aziraphale,” the man said, offering a soft pink hand over the hedge. “What should I call you, neighbour? Oh, I _do_ hope we’ll be friends.”

Slowly, Crowley put away his phone, then reached out, and they shook hands. “Crowley, not Crawly. Anthony J. Crowley.”

“Aha!” Azira-whatever shook with a gentle touch, then squeezed before he withdrew. “Are you waiting for something, Mr. Crowley? You seem preoccupied.”

Crowley snorted, stuffing his hands into his pockets. “Moving van. ‘S late. Empty cottage full of nothing.”

“Oh dear!”

“Oh dear,” Crowley echoed emptily. He slunk off the hedge, making it pluck back into shape.

“Might I offer you some refreshment?” Azira-something-or-other said, in his warm and warbling way. “I have plenty of food if you need some.”

Crowley waved a hand. “Nah. ‘M fine. Thanks.”

“Ah. Alright.” The man seemed unsure. “Well, nice meeting you. I know you’ll be comfortable here in Tadfield. It’s a very nice, safe village.”

Crowley’s heart sank. “Yeah. Ssso I’ve heard.”

Somewhat dejected now, Azira-so-and-so murmured, “I-I’ll see you around, then, won’t I, old boy.” He forced a smile, and withdrew. “Pip pip.”

After the fellow had gone back inside his cottage and shut the netted door, Crowley sniffed the air.

Crowley considered himself a master at sizing people up, and he now knew three things about this _Aziraphale_. He was English. About as English as people could be, really. He was smart, too – smart enough that Crowley might actually be able to hold a decent conversation with him in all the dreary years that were to come. And, _Christ_, he was gay. So gay. Gay enough that looking at him produced a second-hand-gay effect that made Crowley gayer than he already was. Which was how he noticed that his new neighbour smelled like cranberries and brown sugar.

Despite his sourness about his new situation, Crowley smiled, just a little.

  
  


No food. No clothes. No computer, no TV, no radio, no magazines, no newspapers, no books. No pots or pans. Empty shelves. Unsheeted, unmattressed bed. All Crowley had were the skinny jeans on his skinny legs and the blazer on his back, and the skin-tight black layers underneath. It was dark outside and his stomach was growling.

May as well find something to pass the time, he supposed.

He’d seen a shed in his back garden, and slunk down there under glare of the floodlight that came on when he opened the back door.

In the shed were some useless old things – butterfly nets and boxes and spades and spiders. He took up a trowel, and went to the nearest flowerbed, knelt down, and started digging up weeds. He could not abide weeds.

He preferred indoor houseplants, because outdoor gardens were just so... messy. There was nothing sensible about letting flowers grow wherever they liked. That was how you lost track of _which_ flower went _where_, and before you knew it, some ugly bugger had grown in his own bloody flowerbed and knew far too much about all the other flowers, and when _he_ got into trouble for being out of bounds, his only sensible option to save his roots was to rat out all the other bastard flowers. And then that poor bugger would get himself thoroughly uprooted anyway, and shipped to Hell-only-knew-where, no moving van, no hot water yet, no dinner. Just a supposedly good feeling inside, because an entire botanical crime syndicate fell because of him. Well, sans the botanical part. But bad seeds were bad seeds, however you looked at it.

As far as Crowley was concerned, anything growing outside which wasn’t grass or a tree was a weed. It was all going to go.

He buried his bare hands in the dry soil, fishing around for dandelion roots. Grasping a knot triumphantly, he leaned back, reaching again for his trowel.

He patted around.

Then he looked down, and looked around. No trowel.

The floodlight went off, sensing no movement.

Frowning, Crowley got up, in case he’d sat on the trowel by mistake. The light came back on, and he saw a big lot of nothing.

“Hnnn,” he said.

He looked at the dark patch of soil he’d cleared, and the pile of leaves beside it, then sighed. He grasped all the weeds and carried them to the crazy-paved patio, dumping it. He headed back inside, flicking dirt out from under his fingernails.

What he needed was a bath. He headed into the dinky, outdated kitchen to wash his hands, grimacing at the lukewarm water, kept temperate only by the sun’s lingering heat in the walls.

He stepped back, and stepped on his trowel. “E’_yow_ch!” He hopped, grasping his bare, muddy foot. He glared at the trowel.

“What the blazes are _you_ doing here?” he uttered.

He picked up the trowel, went to the back door, opened the door, and hurled the trowel out. The light came on. Crowley saw something round and white disappear in a hurry through two panels of his garden gate.

At this point he was equally intrigued and uncaring. He erred on the side of staying put, because he’d learned his lesson by now: poking his nose where it didn’t belong was a bad move. He shut the door and went to run himself a disappointingly cold bath.

  
  


“Tum, tum, te-tum, tum, tum-te-tum-te-tum!” Aziraphale sang, making his jovial way along his upstairs hallway, towel slung over his shoulders, slippered feet patting on the floorboards. He was damp and happy. “Tuuuummmm, ta-ta-ta-ta-ta-ta-taaa, te-_taaaa_...”

He sighed with a smile as he reached his tenderly-lit bedroom, plush covers pulled back, lampshades tasselled and lacy. He hung up his towel on the ice-cold radiator, toed off his slippers, hung his robe, and was about to crawl snugly into bed when he heard a _bomphff._

He turned to look at his bedroom door, doing up the top buttons on his pyjamas.

_Blompsshhgh._

Barefoot, Aziraphale left his bedroom, cautiously following the hallway.

He stood at the top of the stairs and listened, heart pounding.

_Kmpphhhhhsshh._

Taking the stairs down into the darkness below, breathless and silent, Aziraphale clung to the bannister for stability. It was so hard to hear over his heartbeat.

There came a little wet slapping noise... _P’p p’h p’p p’p—_

Aziraphale whipped into the kitchen and slammed on the light. “Now look here—”

There was nobody there to now-look-here _at_.

Aziraphale looked down, and realised his intruder might not understand even the most eloquent of talking-tos.

  
  


Crowley left the bathroom naked, sopping wet, and miserable. He padded towards what was supposed to be a bedroom, sans the bed. He’d lain his dirty clothes on the mattress-free bed frame, and he resentfully returned to them, psyching himself up to put them back on.

He reached the bed frame, and found a single, saggy black sock with a red cherry pattern on it.

He looked around, sock in hand.

He started to squint.

  
  


“Out! Out, you fiend!” Aziraphale wafted a baking tray at the giant grey goose, who ran around in circles in the kitchen, honking and flapping its massive wings and knocking everything everywhere. Aziraphale’s poor bare feet had already trodden on a tupperware lid and squished some green beans, and he was not having a good time.

The bird stopped near the fridge, hissing, showing its sharp teeth, scaring Aziraphale back two steps with a yelp.

“Stop this at once!” Aziraphale told it. “If you don’t get out of my house, I’ll— I’ll be forced to call – whoever it is I’m supposed to call when wild animals break in.”

He stormed past the mess of fireplace ash the goose had made on the living room rug, and over to the flyscreen netting that covered the open door, where a pleasantly cool draft eased some of the ubiquitous summer heat. There was a goose-shaped hole torn in the bottom part of the net.

“I’m only going to say this once,” Aziraphale said, after having said it five times already: “Out.” He pointed to the hole.

The goose bent down and ate the green beans, taking one in its orange beak at a time, then tipping back its head to swallow.

“Goodness.” Aziraphale tutted, creeping closer to the monster, baking tray used as a shield. He tiptoed around the goose, then slowly... slooowly edged forward, trying to nudge it towards the door.

The goose, having gotten bored with green beans, now had designs on the cookie crumbs.

But Aziraphale persisted, and as the goose honked in protest and tried to scurry brutishly away, Aziraphale herded it with great determination, and no small amount of physical force.

Eventually he opened the door, gave the bird a soft kick on its rear, and it hopped out, affronted, but with the door slammed in its face and the baking tray blocking the hole, it honked, and strutted off.

“Menace!” Aziraphale exclaimed to himself.

He lowered the tray, and looked despairingly at all the mess. Ash everywhere. Food everywhere. Aziraphale was still aching and sweating from goose-herding, so decided that tidying up was Future Aziraphale’s problem. The hole in the flyscreen, however, would need to be fixed, pronto. There was no living in a cottage in summer unless the door was left open.

He was in the middle of rolling up his pyjama sleeves when he heard the sound of wet footprints coming up his garden path. With a battle cry, he took up his shield again, a fire poker as a sword, and hurled himself towards the door—

...Only to see his startled, skinny neighbour outside on the front step, holding his privates in both hands, wearing a sock in a place a sock wasn’t usually worn.

Aziraphale stared at him through the netting.

“Ssso sorry to... bother you,” Crowley said, with obvious embarrassment. “You’re—” he saw the mess through the netting, “clearly busy. But.” He shrugged awkwardly. “Either you just broke into my house or someone just robbed yours too, so tell me which it is and maybe we can... come to an arrangement about how to proceed.”

“I suppose I _was_ robbed,” Aziraphale said, lowering the fire poker. “Why on Earth are you naked?”

“Why were _you_ about to run me through with an iron poker?” Crowley retorted.

“I wasn’t—” Aziraphale looked at the poker, then threw it aside. It clattered. “There was a goose.”

Crowley stared. “A goose.”

“Yes. A big grey one.”

“Right.” Crowley’s lower lip moved, but he said nothing else.

“Ah—” Aziraphale wrenched open the door. “You’d better come in. The children come around on their bikes sometimes, we wouldn’t want anyone seeing you like this, now, would we.”

Crowley edged in, keeping his face to Aziraphale, back to the wall.

Aziraphale backed up too, patting around for the blanket on the sofa. He found it, and handed it over at arm’s length.

Crowley took it, dropped his sock, and clutched the patchwork quilt to his chest, sighing in relief as he wrapped the blanket around himself like a towel. He combed his quiff of damp red hair up off his forehead with both hands.

“What _did_ happen here?” Crowley asked, nodding to the mess. “Maybe I misjudged you. Maybe in this whole sleepy town, you’re the one who can actually throw a wild party.”

Aziraphale gave a nervous, flattered smile, and a quick tilt of his head. “As much as I wish that were true, I’m afraid it really was a goose. Pecked a hole right through my flyscreen, look.”

Crowley opened his mouth. “This goose. Doesn’t happen to steal clothes or gardening equipment, does it?”

“I... wouldn’t know,” Aziraphale admitted, hugging his own middle. “So far its little goose friends have tangled my hosepipe, bruised a book, blocked my chimney, torn down my curtains – and, as of tonight, messed up my fireplace and ransacked my fridge.”

“Clever geese.”

“Evil masterminds, more like it,” Aziraphale uttered crossly, storming to get a long-armed dustpan and brush, then storming to the rug to start sweeping. There was nothing that provided him more energy than a burning fury. “Perhaps your estate agents ought to have told you _that_ before you moved here. Oh, yes! Lower Tadfield’s the most picturesque village south of the Lake District! Plenty of rolling landscapes, delightful locals, no end of wholesome community fun for the whole family! Nobody ever _mentions_ the goose problem!”

Crowley was starting to smile. “I skipped past the whole ‘estate agent’ thing,” he said. “Just got a whole cottage handed to me this morning.”

“Oh, you are lucky,” Aziraphale uttered darkly, slamming the brush at the pan, clouding the air with ash. He lurched to the kitchen and began attacking the green beans with bristles.

Crowley drew a soft, tentative breath. “Look... um. I know I said earlier, I didn’t need anything. But. Moving van hasn’t arrived yet, still. I ate my packet of crisps already. And. Well.” He looked sadly down at his blanket-wrapped form. “If I leave here with your property you’ll have been robbed twice. If I wasn’t in my birthday suit I’d help you with the sweeping.”

“Oh, don’t,” Aziraphale said kindly. “Don’t worry. Keep the blanket. You can give it back to me when you’re all settled in at home.”

Crowley fidgeted. “A-Are you sure? I. I don’t usually... _borrow_... things. Not really my style.”

“And walking around with no clothes on _is_ completely on brand for you, is it? Because if that’s the case I think Mr. R.P. Tyler of the Neighbourhood Watch will have quite a few extra things to complain about at the next village meeting.”

Crowley’s grin was inching towards his left ear. He seemed so amused that even Aziraphale stopped what he was doing and smiled back.

“Um.” Crowley hung his head. “No. Not a habit of mine.”

“As soon as I’m done with this, I can get you a plate together,” Aziraphale said. “And some clothes, I think. I’m a little rounder about the middle than you, but that’s nothing a belt won’t fix. Just sit yourself down, Mr. Crowley, and tell me _all_ about yourself.”

Crowley shuffled to the sofa, sitting down primly, stiffly, looking guiltily at all the mess as Aziraphale cleaned. But as Aziraphale urged, “Come on! Where did you live before?” Crowley sank back into the couch cushions, then lifted each bare and dirty foot, crossing his legs.

“London,” Crowley said. “Left in a bit of a hurry.”

“Oh yes?”

Crowley felt a swoosh of discomfort. He’d been told very clearly by several police officers that he was no longer the person he used to be. He was Anthony J. Crowley now. New life, new home, new set of rules. He’d also been told what would happen if he broke those rules, and did Crime again, but he’d zoned out at that point, as he’d been wondering what the ‘J’ stood for. He hadn’t gotten to the bottom of that mystery yet.

“Is it—” Crowley took a swift breath, looking longingly at Aziraphale. “Is it... good, here? For people our age? I saw a lot of elderly people as the taxi drove in, and a lot of children, and their parents. But I’m not any of those. And... you seem to be my age. Around fifty, yes?”

Aziraphale put all the food waste and ash in the dustbin, set aside the broom, and looked across to the sofa, meeting Crowley’s eyes.

“If anyone had asked me about my general satisfaction yesterday, I would’ve had no encouraging answer,” Aziraphale admitted. “I’ve been... especially lonely here. Bored, almost. Regretting my retirement, more often than not. Wondering if I’d still had another twenty years of principality left in me after all.” He swallowed, frowning slightly as he wondered why he’d shared such a thing. “But... now you’re here. And I’m here. And you won’t ever be lonely in Tadfield, Mr. Crowley,” Aziraphale said softly. “I can promise you that much. And certainly not bored, either! These damn geese!”

Crowley hated that he was comforted by that. He’d prayed he’d be left alone here – but _properly_ alone, with nobody to nag him for money or bother him about his work standards or get between him and his plants. But being left alone and being lonely suddenly had a distinction between them, and he relaxed a little, glad of Aziraphale’s sweet assurances.

“Just call me Crowley,” Crowley said. “I’m... not a ‘Mr.’”

Aziraphale looked at him, surprised. “Neither am I,” he said.

After a stunned silence, the quiet that settled between them was really quite a pleasant one.

  
  



	2. One Absconds with a Scone

Lonely he may be, but there was one significant upside to being retired: Aziraphale could lounge outside in the shade of his garden tree with his feet up, and he could drink his iced fruit tea and suck all the flavour out of the good biscuits _whenever he liked_.

He alternated between enjoying the blue sky peeking between gushing green leaves, and lowering his eyes to his book, then drifting off into little fantasises where Holmes and Watson finished up all their cases and had nothing better to do than enjoy each other’s intimate company.

For a good chunk of the afternoon, Aziraphale had a distant look in his fair eyes, a faint smile on his lips, and a cramp in his hand, because the book was heavy and he kept forgetting to put it down between daydreams.

Eventually he decided he’d wasted enough time – and the tea had really gone through him – so he nipped inside for a bathroom break, then came back out, arms laden with art supplies.

He sat on his garden lounger again, art case on his thighs, and began to doodle the shape of the kingfisher he saw perched on the telephone wire over the lane, then the sparrow on his satellite dish. He was about to get out the watercolours when he heard four sets of bicycle wheels rushing past down the lane.

The children often raced around, so he barely looked up – but he heard their shrieks and calls as a commotion started, and with a jolt of alarm, he set aside his art and jogged to his garden gate, looking out with his hands on the weather-greyed wood.

“Good Heavens,” he exclaimed, seeing the children trying to pass a brown-bottomed goose, but the goose blocked their way in the narrow lane, snapping at their wheels and flapping its wings until they were forced to halt and back up in single file, feet to the ground.

They were stubborn children, unlikely to be defeated by anything, least of all a territorial goose, so of course they took another stab, but with another yelp of alarm, the girl named Pepper fell back, shaking an ankle as the goose pulled her buckled shoe off and made off with it.

“Pepper, go around to the left!” Brian shouted, waggling his arm to the right. “Go, while it’s still eating your shoe!”

“I want that shoe _back_,” Pepper demanded, wheeling her bike up to the bird, who dropped the shoe to hiss. “Don’t you hiss at me, you rotter.” She bent down and snatched the shoe. The goose jumped at her face, and she jerked backwards, crossing her arms protectively.

“I’d suggest you leave it alone and find a different way past,” Aziraphale warned, unable to open his gate, as Wensleydale’s bike was in the way. “It might be protecting its nest. Mothers can get very territorial, you know.”

“This is _our_ lane,” Adam said behind Pepper, looking bothered. “If the geese want to be territorial they should do it somewhere else. We just want to get to the Post Office for ice-cream.”

“Try telling _it_ that,” said another adult voice, one that had Aziraphale up on tiptoes, wobbling this way and that to see over the hedge. “Maybe if you bribe it rather than threatening it, it’ll get out of your way.”

“Right, like a _goose_ wants _ice-cream_,” Pepper said derisively, her half-hooded eyes giving Crowley a stare where Aziraphale couldn’t see. “Who are _you_, anyway? Nice dress.”

Aziraphale saw Crowley’s slim white hand extend into the lane to shake Pepper’s little brown one.

“Anthony J. Crowley. Moved in yesterday. And... ah. It’s a nightshirt, actually.”

“Mine,” Aziraphale said, drawing the children’s attention. “There was a bit of a palaver last night. We really do have a goose problem, don’t we?”

Pepper agreed, as she eased her bike past the goose, which honked, and attacked her back wheel, but gave up when it was flipped over and its back hit the ground. It took off and flew away, honking loudly.

Everyone watched it go.

“Well, that’s _that_,” Crowley said from his side of the fence.

“See you around, then,” Adam said, as the children pumped their bike pedals and picked up speed.

“Very nice to meet you,” Wensley called back. “And Pepper’s right, actually, it is a nice dress.”

Brian gave a salute, and then they were gone, the hiss of their wheels on the soft grit fading away.

Aziraphale left his garden, and came to Crowley’s gate just as Crowley opened it up with a smile.

“Hello, Aziraphale,” Crowley said. In the glint of sunlight, his eyes looked yellow, and the colour seemed rather fetching on him.

“Hello,” Aziraphale said. He gave Crowley an appreciative look. “Oddly enough, Crowley, it does look like a dress.”

Crowley beamed. “You think so?” He examined the white lace frills on the chest and the rolled-up sleeves. “Hm. Didn’t think white was my colour.” He sniffed, and swept a finger towards the cottage. “The moving van arrived about an hour ago. Groceries delivered too. I can treat you to a late lunch, if you want.”

“Oh, I’ve just eaten,” Aziraphale said, but then supposed an hour ago was hardly ‘just’, and Crowley looked so forlorn all of a sudden, not able to repay the kindness Aziraphale had shown last night – so Aziraphale added, “Ahh, maybe just a morsel.”

Crowley brightened. “Come on, then.”

Aziraphale followed after his neighbour, and, he supposed, his friend. He looked around the garden, where the flowerbed was only partially uprooted, and a trowel was stabbed in the middle of the lawn.

“Don’t look at that,” Crowley said. “I’ve barely gotten started. I’m waiting until I have real clothes, didn’t wanna stain your... dress.”

“Are you a gardener, then?”

Crowley glanced back over his shoulder. “Uh... sure. These days? Why not.”

“What were you before?” Aziraphale asked, as they stepped up onto the porch and into the cool confines of a tiny kitchen. The bags of shopping hadn’t been put away yet.

Crowley rolled a shoulder, going to the kitchen sink and washing his hands. He pondered for a while, then said, tentatively, “Undercover operative bringing down enemy agents.”

“Oh, a police officer?”

Crowley looked at him blankly. Then he blinked. “Mm...hm?” He seemed unsure.

“Oh, I feel safer already,” Aziraphale said cheerfully, hands clasped on the middle, pressed to his velvet waistcoat. “Now I know there’s experienced law enforcement just a stone’s throw away.”

Crowley wore a tense smile. He wheezed. Then he said, flushed. “Ah— No. No, I’m. Kind of the opposite of a police officer. Or was. Used to be.”

“Ah. Like a private eye, I _see_.”

Crowley scratched his stubbled cheek. “Aahhhh.”

“No?”

“Not really. But.” Crowley shrugged. “Close enough, I suppose.”

Crowley put together a light meal of camembert cheese and cucumber slices and Ritz crackers and cherry tomatoes and red grapes, and they sat upon the porch step, just in the shade of the cottage, eating from their cupped hands. They basked in the reflected light of the paling sky, listening to the birds and the bees and the honk of a distant train.

Aziraphale ate, but watched Crowley, thinking to himself how lucky he was to have had a friend arrive here so fully-formed. Odd as it seemed, even with precious little information gleaned about this stranger, and how obvious it was he was lying about his past, Aziraphale supposed it all hardly mattered, when they clearly got on, and had the rarest of traits in common... And he was handsome, too, which made him very nice to look at. He was all cheekbones and yellow eyes, and while that combination had never been anywhere near Aziraphale’s list of interests, the fact he looked stunning in a nightdress in broad daylight was certainly helping.

It seemed to Aziraphale that he was growing _fond_.

He accepted it, and let out a happy hum.

Crowley glanced at him. “Hm?” He swallowed his food. “What?”

“What?” Aziraphale asked, pretending not to blush. “What-what.”

Crowley grinned lopsidedly. “Have you ever seen a green goose?”

Aziraphale blinked. “Pardon?”

“Green. Pastel green.”

“No... can’t say I have.”

“Well, there was one here.” Crowley pointed at his shed. “Caught the bugger trying to pick the lock with its beak. Can only guess what he’d find in there. Chased him off with a broken deck chair.”

“I wonder how many geese there are,” Aziraphale murmured, looking into his cupped palm, where his last grape was growing warm. “Whoever takes it upon themselves to round them up is going to have a job and a half. I’ve been here a year and I’ve never seen the same one twice. They’ve gotten more aggressive these past weeks.”

“Hm.”

Aziraphale finished eating, and wrapped his hands around his legs, palms on his calves. “I say,” he said, tentatively, “Crowley, you wouldn’t be interested in having tea at my place later, would you?”

Crowley sat up straighter, looking perplexed. “Tea?”

“Iced tea, if you like. And biscuits. You know. British biscuits. Cookies. Not scones. Although I do have scones too, good with butter and jam.”

Crowley’s eyes darted between Aziraphale’s, back and forth. “You. Want to give me. Tea.”

“And dinner, perhaps,” Aziraphale wondered. “But I see you have all your food now, so perhaps there’s no need—”

“No!” Crowley gasped and touched Aziraphale’s arm. “No-no, I mean yes. Yes to tea. And dinner. That. I’d like that.” He swallowed. “I’d really like that.”

Aziraphale placed his own hand over Crowley’s – but Crowley snatched his back, shocked, like he hadn’t realised he’d reached out. He examined his own hand, then balled up a fist, head down.

Aziraphale watched him for a while, wondering what to make of him.

“W...” Aziraphale tilted his head. “Would you like to go to my place now?”

“Now? We just ate.”

“Yes, but,” Aziraphale said, brain working fast to build a railway as his train of thought rushed along, “I have drawings I can show you. My illustrations, you know.”

“Birds,” Crowley remembered.

“Exactly.”

Crowley held Aziraphale’s eyes for a while. “Oh...kay,” he said, softly. He looked quietly charmed, and more than a little confused. “Are you sure?”

“About what?

“About me. Letting me into your house again.”

Aziraphale frowned. “A goose messed it up, Crowley, not you. You helped me fix the screen door, in fact.”

“Yeah but—” Crowley stopped. He froze, letting go of a long, gentle breath. His eyes started to twinkle. “So long as you’re... sure.”

“Of course I’m sure.” Aziraphale got up and offered down a hand.

Crowley stared at the hand, then took it.

  
  


“Now you sit there and enjoy yourself,” Aziraphale said forthrightly, hands on Crowley’s shoulders as he lowered him to the lounge chair. “I’m taking the paint out of the sun before it all crumbles up. Won’t be two shakes of a lamb’s tail!”

Slim wooden suitcase of art supplies in hand, scrap paper in the other, he hurried up to his cottage, elbowed open the door, and vanished inside.

Crowley sat, stunned.

Either a) Aziraphale was a particularly naive, trusting fellow, b) Crowley hadn’t been clear enough that he was unable to give a straight answer regarding his past, or perhaps c) Aziraphale was simply too lonely to care what kind of person Crowley had been or what he’d done, the way certain people let stray cats inside, even if they had fleas.

Crowley was many things: a hacker, a thief, a good person to have on hand to make up lies on the spot – an all-round dirty, rotten snake. What he was not was a decent person. But that didn’t mean he didn’t look at decent people doing nice things and think, ‘hey, that doesn’t look too difficult’. He’d just never been given the chance to do anything except computer hacking and thieving and lying and general snakery. He’d even proved his lack of decency by ratting out the syndicate who called him family.

Big, shiny, wriggly snake. That’s what he was.

Witness Protection had gone and given him a new life, though, and he was baffled by the idea that he was supposed to go into this new life telling nothing but lies to all the people he was meant to live out the rest of his days with. He’d just made a friend, his first friend ever, the first person who seemed to want his company for some reason other than the fact he could steal money for them without leaving a trace, and now Crowley’s thoughts were jumping through fiery hoops, back and forth, starting with ‘_I’m not supposed to tell anyone where I came from or my cover is blown, and I only just escaped, dammit_’, soon followed by ‘_but if I lie to him then I’m doing exactly the same thing I’ve been doing all my life so I haven’t escaped at all, double-dammit_’. Then back again.

One might refer to this as a quandary. A dilemma, if thou will.

“I’m not the world’s best baker,” Aziraphale said, sun blazing in his platinum-blond hair as he approached with a tray in his hands. “But I do try. They get a little fuzzy on the palate after you eat them, but lashings of jam and cream tends to help with that.” He put the scones down on the striped lounger beside Crowley’s thighs. “Now let’s see— Oh! Butter! Forgot the butter. Two ticks.”

He pottered off again.

Crowley looked at the tray, which had two plates, each with a perfect creamy bread scone with juicy currants, and a tiny pot of red jam with a teaspoon, and a seperate bowl of thick white cream. Under one of the plates there were a few rectangles of watercolour paper.

Crowley reached for and took the artwork.

He marvelled at it.

When Aziraphale had said he made scientific drawings of birds, Crowley had envisioned a waterfowl standing among pond reeds, with a magnifying glass held over one side of the bird to show a gory cross-section of its guts. Except what he held in his hands were simple, friendly, and beautifully coloured. A painting of a cockerel had been labelled from wattled crown to feathery tail. Crowley could imagine this sort of art taking pride of place in a Dorling Kindersley book.

He went through each of the artworks, smiling at the sparrows, and the magpie. The next one in the stack was clearly drawn for fun, more cartoony, a crow with an open beak and wing-hands on its hips, exclaiming, “_Cor! What’s all this, then?_”

Shaking his head fondly, Crowley drew a breath and reached for his plate with the scone, only for his fingers to swipe on nothing. He looked up, then looked around. This routine was becoming familiar by now.

Then he spied a brown goose high-tailing it out of the gate, scone in its beak.

“OI!” Crowley stuffed the paintings back under his empty plate. “Come back here!”

Aziraphale came outside. “What’s going on?”

Crowley waggled a hand frantically at the gate. “Goose! Yanked my scone right out from under my nose!”

“Blast!” Aziraphale hurried to the chair and put down the butter dish. “Well, let’s not sit around all day – let’s get after it!”

“After...? Excuse m—”

Aziraphale had already left the garden.

Crowley stared. Well. Guess he was running today.

He chased after his neighbour, who chased the goose, who hurried down the lane in pitter-patters, waggling its brown tail. Its white head was held aloft, kept high to prevent itself from dropping the scone.

“Get back here!” Aziraphale shouted, trotting along with high knees in his checkered trousers and sandals, puffing, clearly out of practise at running. “You— You thief! That was my last scone!”

Crowley caught up with him easily, and kept pace for a while as they left the lane and headed up a grassy embankment, over a green rise and scooting down the other side. The brown-bottomed goose was way out ahead, waddling like its life depended on it. Crowley could see Lower Tadfield’s rooftops from here, brown tiles and twisted lanes around a central village square.

“Ih— Shou— Can’hh—” Aziraphale was struggling.

Crowley looked at him. “I’ll go catch it, shall I?”

“If— Ah— Sorry—”

Crowley ran ahead, scampering down another slope and leaping from a path worn down by sheep – sheep who watched them with mild interest, still chewing their grass.

The goose plopped itself into a large, muddy puddle and swam off, disappearing into long grass with its prize. Crowley leapt after it – but immediately realised how shortsighted that idea was when he fell face-first into the lukewarm water, splashing around until he was upright, knee-deep in the mud, hands clawing filth off his face.

“Bleh! Bleahahfghg.”

Aziraphale came up to the edge of the pond, hands on his thighs, keeling forward. “Weh— Wasn— Good tryhh— Oh, my dear—”

Crowley waded back to Aziraphale, wondering what madness had come over him. Who chased a goose? Who jumped into a pond? For a _scone_? He wasn’t even going to eat it after the goose licked it, was he? Why on Earth—?

Then, as Aziraphale offered him a hand to help him back to dry land, his eyes bright and laughing, a darling little grin on his face, panting, making grateful, affectionate noises, Crowley understood why he’d chased a goose who’d absconded with a scone.

He’d fallen hopelessly in love.

“Oh,” Crowley whimpered, as Aziraphale wrapped his shoulders in two affirming hands and gave him a heartening squish.

“I do hope th— those delivery – people— Hope they brought you a – hh – change of clothes,” Aziraphale breathed out, his cheeks plump with a smile. “You’re welcome to borrow more of my pyjamas if not.”

Crowley shook his head. “Got clothes. What I need is a bath. A nice, warm bath.”

“And some tea, I imagine,” Aziraphale said, taking Crowley by the elbow, locking arms with him, unafraid of the mud. “You’ll have your bath. Then I think we can share that second scone, don’t you?”

Crowley nodded. “Sounds reasonable to me, angel.”

Aziraphale looked at him. “Angel?” he queried.

“What, you don’t like it?” Crowley asked, worried.

“No, no, I didn’t say that,” Aziraphale assured him. He closed his mouth, and smiled softly. “I’ll get used to it.” He smiled for a few seconds longer, then became a bit more alert. “Ah... now... Home time, I think. Come along, my dear.”

They made their steady way back home, silly smiles on their faces and a fluttering of something terribly pleasant in their hearts.

  
  



	3. Crowley and Aziraphale vs. The Canard Cartel

A village meeting was held once every two weeks in a wooden building on stilts, with a gritty forest-green ramp leading to the entrance. It wasn’t too far from the grocery store or the dog park or the swimming pool, so even though it was a bit of a squeeze for all those folks interested in community upkeep, it remained a decent location for a evening meetups.

“They have snacks,” Aziraphale said, carrying along a box of shortbread biscuits to share. “If we get there early we might even get some of the wine.”

They passed under the glow of one streetlight to another, intermittently wearing haloes and having their faces darkened to purple masks, then putting their haloes back on again.

“I’m not going to have to stand up and introduce myself, am I?” Crowley asked worriedly. “Always hated class presentations.”

Aziraphale hummed. “You don’t have to stand up. Maybe just say hello and wave. They’re all very friendly people, Crowley, you needn’t worry.”

“Ngh.”

“Up we go,” Aziraphale said, gesturing Crowley up the wheelchair ramp. Crowley went with his head down and his hands in his pockets, feeling like an overlarge chicken being herded into a henhouse.

Admittedly, it was pleasant inside, if cramped. Warm wood made up all the walls, lit by round golden sconces, and there was a speaker’s podium and a projector screen at the far end of the room. There were two dozen stackable seats all locked together in two aisles, and a table on the left, which was where Crowley and Aziraphale both gravitated. Aziraphale put down his biscuit tin and reached for the mini sausage rolls, while Crowley took a bottle of cheap red wine with one hand and a glass tumbler with the other.

He gave the first glass to Aziraphale, then poured himself the same amount. Then added a bit more.

They sat at the very front of the barn, giving polite smiles to the mothers and grandfathers and ten-year-olds who came through the sliding door and found seats.

“That’s Mr. Newton Pulsifer,” Aziraphale said under his breath, popping another sausage roll into his mouth, then sprinkling crumbs onto the paper napkin in his lap. “He does the projector slides and all the graph-making. A bit of a clumsy fellow, but don’t tell him I said so. He’s quite a good young man, really.

“That there, next to him? Latina, glasses, blue coat? That’s his girlfriend Anathema Device, she’s _very_ opposed to the environmental changes that the council have proposed. She’s never missed a meeting in five years, so I’ve heard. People say she’s a witch, but I’ve never heard of a witch with scientific calculator in her coat pocket. She has tissues, too, and she says ‘bless you’ if you sneeze, but to be quite honest, I don’t think it’s God she’s thinking of.”

Crowley nodded along, quietly wondering whether he was supposed to be choosing a side. The aisle did seem to divide people: the youngsters and mothers and Anathema were all on one side, while the old people and tough-looking farmer-types were all on the other side. Crowley glanced around again and realised he and Aziraphale had taken seats slightly apart from everyone else, as their chairs were unconnected to anyone’s but each other’s. They were on their own side, apparently.

In came those four children who Crowley met the other day, trailing shoelaces and eating sandwiches. Their bicycles were absent, but their eyes were keen, and they sat two-and-two either side of Anathema, striking up easy conversation.

“That’s Pepper,” Aziraphale nodded to the black girl, who wore a determined expression. “Brian’s the one with a dirty shirt. Wensleydale’s the boy in the glasses. And Adam – curly blond hair – he’s the leader of their little gang. They get into all sorts of trouble... They’re the bane of the villagers’ existences, but I don’t mind them, really.”

“Geerrrruffit, laddie, I’m paaarfectly capable of takin’ my aen seat,” came a gruff utterance, as a bulky old man in a dirty mackintosh came blundering into the meeting hall, a felt hat crammed down over his ears. “Git back ta yer daft charts, lad.”

Mr. Pulsifer gave the old man a salute and went off, shooting Anathema a smile as he did.

“That’s Sergeant Shadwell,” Aziraphale said with a sniff. “I’m not entirely sure what he’s a Sergeant _of_, but there it is. He has a bigger sweet tooth than I do, can you believe it? He hates these meetings, but I’m fairly sure he attends purely because—”

A made-up redheaded woman came elegantly through the barn door, her clothes flowy and tasselled, her eyelashes impossibly thick and long, her eyes scanning the room until she saw Shadwell, and she lit up with joy – then turned to the food table, pouring out two cups of tea.

Shadwell left his chair and ambled up to the woman, taking off his hat. “M’lady. See ye left yer hoor’s den of iniquity to grace us wi’ yer presence yet again.”

“Hello, Mr. S,” the lady said, putting multiple sugarcubes into one cup, one after another.

“The Sergeant comes because Marjorie comes,” Aziraphale finished, patting his lips with his napkin. “Ms. Marjorie Potts, but you’ll find her as Madame Tracy in the phone book. She does... seances, and the like. And just between us, she does more... let’s say, _unconventional_ jobs on the side. I haven’t quite gotten to the bottom of what she does, exactly – Thursdays are a mystery. But suffice to say, she’s younger at heart than she looks.”

Crowley had slumped back against his chair, legs tangled, one arm now stretching out behind Aziraphale’s back. “Funny bunch,” Crowley murmured. “You clearly spend a lot of time prying into people’s private lives.”

“Who, me?” Aziraphale said innocently. “I do no such thing. I merely take a healthy interest in the people I share space with.”

“Eyyyeah,” Crowley drawled, grinning. “But you’re nosy.”

Aziraphale frowned. “I am not.”

“You get a thrill from learning people’s secrets. You want to know everything about everyone, so if they ever dig up the dirt on you, you’ll know how to twist the knife and bring them down.”

Aziraphale peered at Crowley. He was quiet for a while. Then he asked, sounding hurt, “Is that really what you think of me, Crowley? A blackmailer?”

“‘S not a bad thing.” Crowley pursed his lips. “You n’ me? Kindred spirits.”

“Kindre— We’re nothing alike, Crowley, not if you think I want to hurt people.”

“Hurt? No, it’s protection. You’re protecting yourself. Aren’t you?”

“Not at all. I’m merely curious, and I’m trying to make you feel at home here.” Aziraphale was baffled. “_You_ like knowing people’s secrets. That’s really what you’re saying.” He huffed and looked forward, arms folded. “I shan’t be telling _you_ any more about anyone, then.”

Crowley smirked back. “Don’t worry, angel,” he purred, knocking a knee against Aziraphale’s. “Tell me whatever you want. I _keep_ people’s secrets, these days.”

Aziraphale looked at him again. “_These_ days...?”

Crowley didn’t have a chance to reply, as a man with a small dog under his arm came striding into the barn, slamming the door shut behind him. “Right!” the man said firmly. “Everyone, if you could please find your seats, the meeting is in session!” He went up to the podium and banged a gavel thrice, which made his dog flinch each time.

“R.P. Tyler,” Aziraphale whispered to Crowley. “And his wife’s dog Shutzi. He’s Neighbourhood Watch, not the Mayor, but he definitely _thinks_ he’s in charge. The man, not the dog, that is.”

“Mr. Aziraphale, of five Whistlethwerp Lane,” R.P. Tyler said, snide eyes falling to the front row. “Something you’d like to bring to our attention, is there?”

Aziraphale’s mouth slid open. “Um. Yes? I suppose there is.” He put on a professional smile and stood up, hands together on his middle. He turned to the congregation. “Ah. Hallo, everyone. As I’m sure many of you have heard by now, we have a new resident here in Lower Tadfield, just moved in. May I introduce my new friend, Anthony J. Crowley, of six Whistlethwerp Lane.”

There was a low murmur of greeting and a small amount of applause led by Aziraphale. Crowley, rather flushed with embarrassment, turned to wave, then sank down and tried to hide in his turned-up black collar, arms folded. He wished he had sunglasses so nobody would see him. He’d always found that a reflective surface over the eyes leant people a certain sense of unease, as they saw their own eyes looking back, not Crowley’s.

By now Aziraphale had sat down, smiling.

R.P. Tyler made a few gruff, disgruntled noises. “Well then. Now that’s over with. Mr. Pulsifer, the slides, if you please!”

There came a faint _cli-clack_ followed by a hum, and the projector screen behind R.P. Tyler lit up in grass green, presenting a contour map of the village and surrounding land.

“First on tonight’s agenda! This map – ahem—”

Newton Pulsifer lay a second plastic transparency film over the map, with large areas shaded in red.

“This map shows the widest outreach of the so-called Tadfield Lawn Beetle at the peak of last summer, graphed with data so _kindly_ provided to us by Miss Device.”

Miss Device sat with her arms crossed, looking sour.

“And, with the community _banded_ together, we have, I am delighted to inform you— Ahem—”

Pulsifer swapped the top transparency film for another, showing a much smaller red patch.

“We have beaten the beetles back! With focussed efforts, and the continued application of specialised pesticides, the beetle will out of our lives by – how long exactly, dear miss?”

A cold, furious voice came from Anathema’s seat, “In six months, three weeks, and two days, the utterly _unique_ insect known as the Tadfield Lawn Beetle will have been completely eradicated from Planet Earth.”

“Wonderful!” R.P. Tyler banged the gavel. “Now, the next—”

“No!” Anathema stood up, dark locks of hair flaring around her shoulders. “Not wonderful! You – you’re willingly dooming an entire species to extinction over the occasional brown patch under your lawn chair! Not to mention the extensive damage the pesticides are doing to the waterways, the other insects – the earthworms, the _bees_—”

“Yes, yes, that’s all been noted, multiple times,” R.P. Tyler said flatly, patting a hand down. “You’ve stated your complaints, miss, and they have been examined carefully, but the council—”

“What council?! What council?! You are the council!”

There came a clamouring of annoyed agreements, including from the children. Aziraphale nodded subtly.

R.P. Tyler slammed the gavel. “Second on the agenda!”

Anathema roared a sigh of frustration and sat down heavily, immediately comforted by a dozen nearby people. Crowley watched, feeling a little sorry for her, and wondering why, if they were all so supportive, nobody else had stood up with her. Nobody ought to face bullies alone, he thought.

R.P. Tyler went on happily, “Mr. Arthur Young, of four Hogback Lane – ah, yes!” Everyone turned to see a portly fellow with a moustache and a cardigan and an unlit pipe. “Mr. Young has won Tadfield’s freshwater fishing championship, yet again! How big was your catch this year? Do tell.”

Mr. Young stood up, bowing his head over and over as a smattering of applause came at him. He tugged his pipe from his lips and said, “Nothing too big this year, I’m afraid. Nobody caught anything bigger than a three-pounder.”

Pepper piped up, arm hooked over the back of her chair, “That’s because of all the poison in the water, you nitwits! All the big fish died back in January! You all thought it was the lightning storms!”

Adam added, “And it’s only a matter of time before the younger fish all die as well. Then there’ll be no fish left in Tadfield at all.”

“Actually, they’ve already started dying,” Wensley said, poking his glasses up his nose. “We found three by the stream last week.”

“And it wasn’t Dog who got them,” Brian said. “We were there when Dog found them.”

“Please, _please_,” R.P. Tyler said. “Miss Device, kindly control your young friends.”

“She doesn’t _control_ us,” Adam said. “Not like _you_ control people.”

R.P. Tyler puffed up, both affronted and proud. “Third on the agenda!”

Crowley was starting to feel uncomfortable in a completely different way than before. It seemed the immutable pleasantness of Lower Tadfield was, as Aziraphale had said, just something they put on the brochure. There was something fishy going on around here... or not so fishy, as it turned out.

“Third. There’s no denying it,” R.P. Tyler said. “There’s not a single one of us here who hasn’t had an uninvited guest.”

Newton Pulsifer put up a slide with a blurry photograph of an angry black goose with a smudged orange beak. A groan of recognition flooded through the masses.

Marjorie Potts called out, “I had one run off with my plimsolls the other day! Didn’t like the taste so came back for my stilettos!”

Mr. Young grunted. “Had one of those buggers unlock my garden gate.”

Adam added, “Yeah, and the neighbour’s goat came in and ate all the washing from the line. Didn’t it, Dad?”

Mr. Young nodded, arms folded, puffing on his empty pipe.

“Ate all the grass seeds I planted this morning,” Crowley said, forgetting for the moment that other people were listening. “Had to buy more at lunch.” He burned with anxiety after he’d spoken, and slumped another four inches down in his seat, heart pounding.

“I had a recent incident in my kitchen,” Aziraphale added, nodding. “It’s not normal, is it, having a goose open a refrigerator door.”

Even Anathema mumbled something about a jar of Bovril and a coal scuttle.

“These geese are almost as much trouble as you four,” R.P. Tyler said to the children beside Anathema, before laughing at his own joke. “I say we take a vote. All in favour of applying the Tadfield Lawn Beetle treatment to the geese?”

Crowley sat up straight. “You want to put garden pesticides on a _bird_?! Who’s been dousing your coffee with petrol, you utter madman?”

A rumble of laughter went through the hordes, and Crowley looked back, relieved to see them all laughing at R.P. Tyler, not Crowley. They... thought Crowley... said something funny? Crowley sat in astonished silence for a couple of seconds.

R.P. Tyler seemed unsettled, his balding grey hair fluffing up at the back, moustache curling. “What I _mean_, young man—” Crowley realised _he_ was the young man, and thought the world was making less and less sense by the minute, “is that we... _eradicate_ the problem by whatever means necessary.”

“You mean _kill_ the geese?” Aziraphale looked on the verge of tears. “Good Heavens, no. Invasive beetles are one thing, but _birds_? They’re wild animals, you can’t just—”

“All in favour say aye!” R.P. Tyler held the gavel above the podium.

Crowley looked back, hearing a silence.

Forty people glared back. Nobody’s hand raised.

Crowley relaxed, a small smile on his lips.

R.P. Tyler lowered the gavel slowly so it made no noise. “Well then. The people have spoken. What, _pray_, does anyone suggest we _do_ about the beasts?”

“Round them up?” suggested a woman who was rocking a baby carrier back and forth. “Catch them, for starters, can’t do anything unless you’ve caught them.”

“Mark them,” agreed someone else. “You know, with those little orange bread tags on their ankles.”

“And _then_ what?”

Nobody really knew.

R.P. Tyler sighed. “Who’s going to volunteer to catch them?”

Silence.

“Look, we can’t bloody-well catch them unless someone volunteers! I know you all have _school_ and your _jobs_ and your _hobbies_ and your _families_, and nobody has _time_. But either someone volunteers or I’ll be calling in the RSPCA, but even with their whole protect-the-animals business, I doubt there’s much to do with a gaggle of misbehaving geese besides giving them the chop.”

Discomfort bristled through the crowd.

Aziraphale took a small, uncertain breath, eyes turned softly to Crowley. He seemed to be looking for permission. Crowley shrugged. _Go ahead._

Aziraphale raised his hand. “If I may. Crowley here has many years’ experience with catching crooks,” he said.

_I do?_ thought Crowley. _Since when?_

“I’m sure if he could snare a scoundrel or two as a private eye, he’d have no trouble with some geese.”

Crowley’s lower back started to sweat. Did Aziraphale just volunteer him? Oh.

Right then! No way Crowley was doing it alone. He turned to R.P. Tyler and told him, in no uncertain terms, “Aziraphale here happens to have a _way_ with birds. Geese are birds, aren’t they. Maybe he can provide some insight.”

Aziraphale tipped his head, supposing that could be true.

“Very well,” R.P. Tyler said wearily. “Mr. Aziraphale, Mr. Crowley, you’re on the case. Catch those geese, or so help us all.” He banged the gavel, and that was that.

  
  


Crowley and Aziraphale sat in the coolness of night, side-by-side on a park bench. Crowley’s arm was stretched over to Aziraphale’s shoulders, not touching, and his other hand reached over, taking the half-empty wine bottle once Aziraphale had drunk a sip.

“So,” Crowley said. He gulped down some wine. “We’re going goose-hunting.”

“So it seems.” Aziraphale took back the bottle, not bothering to wipe the lip before sipping again.

Crowley hummed. “Not like we had anything better to do.”

Aziraphale gave a small smile. “It could be fun.”

“Could be.”

Crowley stared at the empty park for a while, watching the breeze-tickled bushes twinkle in the floodlights. Then he drew a fast breath and asked, “Aziraphale... do you really believe I was a private eye? A detective? Do I seem like a detective?”

Aziraphale lowered the wine bottle from his lips, guilty eyes turned to Crowley. “Weren’t you?”

Crowley plucked at his skinny jeans, rolling a shoulder.

“Even if you weren’t,” Aziraphale said softly, looking at the wine as he passed it over, “I don’t think it really matters, do you? I have no doubt you’re highly skilled at something.”

Crowley smiled, eyes on Aziraphale as he drank. “Would you believe me if I said it’s computer hacking?”

“We barely get an Internet connection here,” Aziraphale said, confused.

“Yeah.” Crowley pressed his lips together, wiping with the back of a hand. “I think that’s why they picked this place. I’m no danger to anyone’s bank accounts out here.”

Aziraphale stared at him, putting together the pieces. He passed back the bottle.

Crowley just held it this time, didn’t drink.

“I don’t care,” Aziraphale breathed, admitting and realising in the same moment. “Whatever you’ve done, whatever you... were? It doesn’t change anything.”

Crowley peered at him in disbelief.

“You’re going to help me catch these geese,” Aziraphale said. “We have a job now. A mission. We’re a team. You and I, Crowley, we’re going to bring down the Canard Cartel.”

It was meant to be all dramatic, the way he said it, but Crowley squinted, trying to hold back a laugh. “Is that what we’re calling it? Lower Tadfield’s gaggle of psychotic geese is now the _Canard Cartel_?”

“Bit out of practise with French,” Aziraphale mumbled. “But I’m sure ‘canard’ covers all kinds of waterfowl. Including geese.”

Crowley shrugged, one hand up acceptingly. He tipped back his head and drank more wine. He burped softly as he looked at the label again. “Angel,” he said, “did you steal this?”

Aziraphale shuffled guiltily. “No.”

Crowley grinned at him, feeling his eyes glisten. “Yoooou diiiid.”

Aziraphale squeaked in protest, “Well, so what if I did?”

Crowley shuffled closer on the bench. He handed over the bottle, and hung his elbow from Azriaphale’s shoulder. “Kindred spiritssss,” Crowley hissed in his ear, lips wet.

If Aziraphale happened to shiver as he drank, Crowley pretended not to feel it.

  
  



	4. How to Conquer a Honker

_CROWLEY’S DETECTIVE NOTEBOOK_   
_Private!!!! Top Secret & Important_   
_Do not read unless authorised_

_Page 1_  
—_The Canard Cartel_—  
_Known haunts: Lower Tadfield (all locations; unlimited access to aerial transport)_  
_Known Cartel members: brown-bottomed goose (sightings common), brown goose, green goose, yellow goose, white goose, grey goose (seen twice), black goose (very rare)_  
_Known sins: Open gates & doors to gain access to homes (trespassing). Steal things (larceny, shoplifting). Eat things (gluttony). Poop on things (probably illegal)._

_Page 2_   
_Witness statements indicate the Cartel is populated solely by solitary birds (unusual for geese). (But then again geese breaking into fridges is unusual for geese too)_   
_Geese are bizarre_   
_What do they need those long necks for anyway_   
_Apparently bread is really bad for them so I’m worried about the one that stole my scone_

_Page 3_  
_Tuesday: Aziraphale bought me a muffin for lunch_ ♡♡♡ _(I cooked him tuna salad pasta for dinner, he LOVED it, I’m so glad I know how to make pasta)_  
_Wednesday: Made him a daisy chain, he seemed pleased. wore it as a bracelet until it wilted and broke (morning)_  
_Wednesday (afternoon): He got a grass stain on his coat when white goose tripped him and I took it home to wash it and he was so happy there was no trace left!!! Bless bicarbonate of soda. He smiled at me, he has such a pretty smile_ ♡♡♡♡♡♡ _I wanna smooch his stupid nose_  
_Wednesday (evening): Discussed cartel at length on his sofa IN PYJAMAS and shared a blanket and had tea and he showed me his collection of Regency silver snuffboxes and theatre programs from defunct plays. He really trusts me!!! he knows I’m a thief and he just!! shows me!!! his valuables!!! and he was so ***soft*** all the time help help help_

_Page 4_   
_Thursday: Tracked brown-bottomed goose from Whistlethwerp Lane heading northwest to muddy pond, lost again in the reeds. May need to invest in rainboots. Or galoshes. Or those ugly plastic trousers._

  
  


Stolen ordnance survey maps of Tadfield swished under Crowley’s palms as he spread them out, corner to corner on the wooden table. Gentle sunlight streamed in through the grimy plastic windows in Crowley’s garden shed, warming the back of his waistcoat. His hair wasn’t done yet, and his sleeves were rolled up badly, but there was an energy in him that needed to be tended to _now_.

“Here.” Crowley thumped an empty wine bottle at each corner of the map, except the corner where Aziraphale carefully placed his open, steaming thermos flask. “I’ll take you through it.”

Aziraphale rolled up the sleeves of his own shirt, tugging on his waistcoat hem, ready for business. He had also clearly just rolled out of bed, but he’d taken the time to make tea. He lifted his thermos again, poured out a cupful, sipped it, then handed it to Crowley.

Crowley sipped, recoiled with a grunt at the burn, then flicked his tongue in and out as he handed the plastic cup back.

“This,” Crowley said, still lapping at his top lip. “This is where it started.” He jabbed a red marker onto the line that represented Whistlethwerp Lane. “Flew up this way. Then here. Then waddled this way. Adam swore he saw one headed here. Pepper chased her shoe a mile west. Marjorie Potts said something about her client’s underwear – anyway, went here. To here. To here.”

For a moment it looked like he was drawing fifteen interlocking pentagrams, but then it became clear that, actually, there was no discernible pattern to the geese’s movements, and Crowley had just defiled the map with scribbles.

And yet he capped his pen and stood back, proud of himself.

Aziraphale sipped his tea, squinting. “I think you need indicators for visual aids.”

Crowley looked around, saw a rusty nail, and poked it through the map, just over Trickleworth Stream Bridge. “Ha.”

Aziraphale put down his tea and dug into his pocket and pulled out ten cut-out shapes, handing them to Crowley. “More like these, I mean.”

Crowley looked at them. Aziraphale had drawn ten geese in a style comparable to Beatrix Potter’s. Some of these geese wore hats, others had scarves, others _scars_, and eyepatches, and rainboots, and carried baskets in their beaks. If Crowley weren’t so wired over his revelation regarding the Canard Cartel, he might’ve wept over how cute Aziraphale’s drawings were. As it was, he’d definitely need to scream into his pillow that night.

Realising Crowley didn’t understand, Aziraphale took back the geese, and folded down little cardboard flaps from each of their backs, and propped them up on the map.

“This little goosey went to the market,” Aziraphale said, placing one goose in the village square. “This little goosey invaded someone’s home. This little goosey caused much grief, this little goosey stole a bun. And this little goosey—” he put a particularly devilish goose in the pond, “hissed aggressively at Crowley until he ran all the way home.”

Crowley pouted. “You _said_ you’d never mention it again.”

Aziraphale couldn’t help but smile. “Just because the thing hisses louder than you doesn’t mean you’re beaten.”

“You don’t know what it _said_ to me, angel.”

Aziraphale went back to his tea.

“Anyway,” Crowley said, pretending not to be dazzled by Aziraphale’s soft figure shrouded in gorgeous morning light, “ahahhh... Um. Um. Um. Wh-wh-what did you find?”

Aziraphale put his tea down again. He picked up another pen, a blue one. He uncapped it, and rotated the nib to point at the map. “The children were most helpful,” he said. “They love that goose, no matter how much trouble it causes.”

Aziraphale drew over Crowley’s linework – not every line, but several of them, presumably the ones that matched his own findings.

“_They_ think,” Aziraphale went on, joining two, then three lines, pen nib bumping the rusty nail Crowley had erected, “that no matter where they all go in the day, one goose always goes back to sleep under the bridge. But the children never saw any of its friends. It appears to be a different goose every time.”

“Trickleworth Stream,” Crowley said gently. “That’s what I said. The bridge is the goose home base.”

“Yes.” Aziraphale lifted the pen. Then, mysteriously, he began lifting each of his goose markers away, putting them aside. Crowley watched each vanish, until, at last, only the white one remained, carrying a basket of carrots and wearing a floppy hat.

“All the patterns,” Crowley said, as his brain whirred as furiously as it had the moment he woke up, “they connect. They connect!” He grabbed Aziraphale by both arms over the table, shaking him jovially. “Angel, there’s only one goose! _There’s only one goose!_”

Aziraphale nodded, having worked it out himself. “But that doesn’t explain the fact it’s a different colour every night.”

“Yes it does!” Crowley jabbed a fingertip at the map – Aziraphale’s cottage. “Fireplace ash. Grey.” Finger on Anathema’s cottage. “Coal scuttle and Bovril. Black.” Finger on the grassy fields. “Green.” Flower fields. “Pollen! Yellow.” Muddy pond. “Brown, and half-brown. Depends how deep it ducked in.”

Aziraphale sucked in a huge breath. “Oh my dear, we’ve done it! We’ve solved the mystery!”

“All this time... we were just tracking one manic goose,” Crowley breathed, still stunned by the revelation. “And that one goose is terrorising the whole village. I suppose now... we catch it.”

Aziraphale’s fingertips tapped together in worry.

Crowley leaned to one side, reaching for a butterfly net. He lifted it, and waggled it.

“Oh!” Aziraphale sighed in relief. “And I was thinking we’d have to find dart guns.”

“Guns?!” Crowley rasped. He booted the cat carrier he’d found in his attic. “No need for violence, angel. Just a bit of stealth.”

“And you know all about that, do you?”

“Enough,” Crowley promised, with a smile. “We’ll catch the thing unawares. When it settles down for the night, just as it’s getting dark... we’ll go to the bridge, and we’ll pounce.”

Aziraphale hummed. “But that’s tonight.”

“Yep.”

“So... what are we doing for the next twelve hours?”

Crowley shrugged, putting down the net. “What do you want to do?”

A sweet, sparkling smile rose in Aziraphale’s eyes. “How would you feel about breakfast?”

  
  


_Page 5_  
_He does this thing when he eats, he sighs and closes his eyes and sinks down and I swear it takes every ounce of my self-control not to moan or whimper or something HE’S SO F*CKING PRECIOUS_  
_I’m dying!!!! I just wanna scoop him up and pepper him all over with kisses and snuggle him and ugh!!! ughh!!!!! HE SMELLS ****SO GOOD****_  
_Geese geese geese his hair is so fluffy and his lips go red when he eats and he always pats his lips after he takes a bite. I wonder if his lips get all tingly. smooch smooc_

Page 5 was torn out and stuffed into Crowley’s pocket. How embarrassing.

The page behind what used to be page 5 soon contained a drawing of a goose in a waistcoat with a tartan bow tie just like Aziraphale’s. It was drawn from reference, while Aziraphale poured tea – and, at one point, plucked fluff out of Crowley’s hair. It was a bad drawing, but Crowley added hearts all around it, smiling at it dopily with his cheek resting hard on one hand... 

He took a double-take at what he’d drawn, then ran back to his own cottage in a fluster, hid his notebook under his mattress and considered burning the cottage down.

(He didn’t, though. And he came back to drink his tea.)

  
  


_This notebook is the property of Aziraphale._

_If found, please return to:_   
_6 Whistlethwerp Lane_   
_Lower Tadfield_   
_Oxfordshire_   
_OX18_   
_England_

_FRIDAY_  
_TO DO:_  
_—ask Crowley to breakfast (fried eggs, buttered toast, baked beans, tea)_  
_—discuss Canard case with Crowley (tell him he’s going a good job, DO NOT stroke his hair. only if there’s fluff in it. maybe put some fluff in it.)_  
_—brunch with Crowley (light salad, tea, biscuits)_  
_—gardening with Crowley (find those old trousers & welly boots. nb: work hard so he’s impressed?)_  
_—late lunch with Crowley (fish & chips & vinegar from shop, salad from cafe, coffee. find eyelash on his cheek? make a wish together! if no eyelash, dab him with napkin)_  
_—walk with Crowley (DO NOT hold his hand even by accident. except in the instance that you spot the goose across the field and grab him to alert him. that could be acceptable.)_  
_—NO hugging Crowley (except if startled by a bee. pretend there’s a bee? or wait until you see a real bee so no lying is involved)_  
_—look for goose with Crowley_  
_—dinner with Crowley (HE’S PROMISED TO MAKE _CHEESE AND ONION TOASTIES!_ I’VE ALWAYS WANTED TO TRY THOSE)_  
_—sit on sofa with Crowley while waiting for sun to go down. DO NOT LAY HEAD ON HIS SHOULDER UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES._  
_—find goose with Crowley_  
_—return home with Crowley and captured goose. ask Crowley if he wants celebratory wine (use good stuff from back of cupboard). allow self to become tipsy. cuddle him. cuddle him again. kiss his hands and cheeks a lot. fall asleep on his lap and wake up in the middle of the night with him stroking your hair and look up at him and then he’ll lean down and KISS me_

  
  


It was almost sunset. Aziraphale was currently resisting laying his head on Crowley’s shoulder as they sat on the sofa, drinking wine, still digesting Crowley’s homemade cheese and onion toasties, waiting for the best time to march over to the bridge with a net and a cat carrier.

Aziraphale suspected the whole ‘cuddling’ thing on his to-do list was written a little prematurely, not to mention with an uncharacteristic failing of eloquence, having been scrawled while over-tired at three o’clock last night due to a badly timed cup of coffee.

Regardless, the fact it was purely wishful thinking didn’t keep him from fantasising, over and over and over again as Crowley told Aziraphale about that one time he hacked into Buckingham Palace’s financial systems just to check what brand of kibble the Queen bought for the corgis. (It was a Swiss brand he couldn’t pronounce – good stuff for dog arthritis, apparently.)

“Did you sell that information to the tabloids?” Aziraphale asked.

Crowley spluttered. “Delicate knowledge like that? I’m taking it to my grave, angel. ‘Xcept for telling you, of course. Can tell you anything. Anythinnnn’ whatsoever.”

Aziraphale poured him more of the good wine, and happily sank closer, stars in his eyes. “I don’t have any secrets from you, my dear, none at all.” Azriaphale sighed loudly with a small moan, chest aching with longing.

Crowley nodded seriously. “Mutual trust. That’s what this is.” He waved a finger between them, almost slopping out some of his wine. “Mutual respect ‘n ununderstandananding.” He hiccuped.

Aziraphale wondered if they were getting drunk a bit earlier than scheduled.

But... it hardly mattered, did it? A goose on the loose wouldn’t be too hard to catch if Crowley and Aziraphale knew where it slept, surely. Even if they _were_ drunk as skunks. As festooned as racoons.

“We’ll be – hoohoo – as slooshed as a goose!” Aziraphale chortled, and then began to giggle when Crowley didn’t get it.

  
  



	5. Lose a Goose with a Smooch

Crowley’s favourite time of day was that precious moment just as the sun dipped behind a blockade – city buildings, the town rooftops – or, in this case, the hills in the west. The orb of starfire could still be seen cradled in the cupped hands of the Earth, bright enough to flash behind the eyes with each blink, but not too bright that he couldn’t look.

From the sun came a straight streak of gradually-slimming gold, or amber, or pink, blazing in the air but not quite reaching the ground. Through the light Crowley could see the bruising shadows of Lower Tadfield Village, and he could hear the distant calls of content people, carrying in that softly-echoing way unique to summertime.

In the diagonal stripe of luminance there were a hundred creatures visible now; never seen before and never to be seen again. Insects, birds, things unknown. They flitted, and they flew, glowing, and they drifted dreamily in the warmth before it would be gone forever.

It was in this peaceful light that Crowley stood, leaning both hands back on his garden gate, drawing a deep breath in. Sky dust and fresh-cut grass made an unlikely perfume, intoxicating in the best way.

He looked to his right, seeing Aziraphale exit his own garden to the lane, carrying that cat cage, now clean of cobwebs. For a quiet moment, they admired the light, compelled to listen to the everlasting birdsong too, as it seemed almost deafening in this part of the world.

“Ready?” Crowley asked, as a bee hummed past and vanished.

Aziraphale let out a pleased sigh. “Yes.”

They’d tried to sober up, but Crowley knew that sideways smile of his wasn’t going anywhere soon, and Aziraphale still looked a bit dazed.

Crowley reached for his butterfly net, and, checking his brown paper bag of ammunition was safely hung from his back pocket, then making sure Aziraphale was close, they started together down Whistlethwerp Lane, to the left, then up the rising hill on the sheep-drawn path that led to the muddy pond.

For the most part, the walk passed in silence; Crowley didn’t trust that every word that passed his lips wouldn’t be a brazen flirtation, and Aziraphale looked like he was trying not to burp.

But, as they made their way past the pond, holding each other’s hands to assist in hopping the fence, and they headed from one field to the next, up another sheep’s path, Crowley inhaled, evening breath cool on his tongue. He asked, mouth wide and eyes squinting, “What’s with the tartan trousers?”

Aziraphale looked at Crowley, then looked down. He frowned. “Tartan is stylish!”

Crowley cackled, hands in his pockets as he sauntered over the peak of a hill and sashayed down the other side.

Those were _tight_ trousers, Crowley noted. Golden, with a brown pattern. Aziraphale’s white shirt tufted out a bit at his hips, as the trousers were too tight to fit his tummy and his shirttails. And oh, the little waistcoat...

Crowley was so busy admiring the curve of Aziraphale’s lower back that he stumbled toes-first into a rabbit warren and took several gullumping stomps forward, catching himself with both hands flailing madly.

Aziraphale caught up to him and took his hand, quite uselessly. “Steady, now,” he said.

Crowley slipped his hand more comfortably into Aziraphale’s, fingers between each other. “Thanks,” he replied, just as uselessly.

They breathed for a while, gazing blankly at each other, holding hands, net and cage all but forgotten. The sun went down properly, and they were left in a cool but pleasant shade. Yet Crowley still felt warm, and seemed to be getting warmer.

He snatched back his hand with a startled sniff, looked about quickly, then gathered his wits and marched on, head down.

Aziraphale trotted after him, clearing his throat.

There was decidedly some mutual attraction between them, Crowley was sure. Head over heels and arse over teakettle he may have been, but Aziraphale was definitely at least a nose over heels and one buttock over teakettle. So to speak. This thing went both ways, was the point. ...Probably.

But Crowley’s heart clenched as he realised he was getting ahead of himself. He didn’t know the first thing about what Aziraphale wanted from a relationship. And for that matter—

“Angel, are you seeing anyone?” Crowley asked, without thinking. He didn’t often do much thinking before asking things, but this time he did none at all.

“Pardon?” Aziraphale looked at Crowley as they strutted through long, seeding grass, flattening a path behind them. “How do you mean?”

“I-I-I-I-I mean. I mean.”

“You mean, am I currently engaged in a romantic entanglement with somebody?”

Crowley wobbled and shrugged and gulped... and then nodded a tiny bit.

Aziraphale smiled. “Only in fantasy, my dear.”

Crowley gazed at him, lips parting.

Aziraphale gave him the most promising look, then glanced away with a sly, teasing smile playing on his pretty lips. Oh, the devil. Oh, the _darling_. Crowley could’ve lain at his feet and let himself be teased with such beautiful vagueness forever.

Trickleworth Stream Bridge was within their sights now, the faint sluicing and wittering of the water just tickling Crowley’s senses. The bridge was an old cobblestone arch, ten feet wide and long but only just tall enough for people to walk under. It connected the very end of Hogsback Lane to the path heading towards the cricket grounds, but it was all alone in the middle of a grassy plain, joining two divided halves of the village.

Judging by the depth of the gulley the bridge covered, Crowley could tell the stream had once been a river, and now only a sandy sliver remained, the base of the riverbed thick with grass and weeds on either side. Still, even in the heat of summer, there was enough water flowing through that there were rocks submerged, knocked and tumbled by Crowley’s heavy rubber soles as he joined Aziraphale in walking up the waterway.

Water splished, and the ground adjusted under their weight, but they crept onward, trying to stay quiet. Geese had better hearing than dogs, so the likelihood of going completely unnoticed was nil. But oh, did they try.

Through the dark-stone archway, Crowley saw the light of evening, still with a pinkish-gold hue.

“Look,” Crowley said, reaching to touch Aziraphale’s hand. He pointed at a sad scrap of fabric, sandy and wet under the bridge.

“That’s your _sock_!” Aziraphale uttered, recognising the cherry pattern. “Silly goose brought it all the way out here.”

Under the bridge there were two wonky stacks of plastic crates and crayfish traps, things used by fishermen when they spent their weekends atop the bridge, waiting for a minnow’s bite. The web-footed goose tracks in the sand around the crates were many, all clear-printed – which, knowing there was only one goose, made Crowley suspect that no human had come down here for their equipment in some time. Months, perhaps. In or out of Tadfield, it hadn’t rained properly in England in a while, so nothing had washed the tracks away in all that time.

“No fish to catch these days,” Crowley remembered.

“Shh,” Azirpahale whispered, hand flung back to touch Crowley’s chest, scrunching his black t-shirt. “Listen.”

Crowley heard the stream truckling along, but then... yes...

He tiptoed forward with Aziraphale until they were near the crates, but could still use them for cover.

There it was! A dirty goose, feasting on a whole ice-cream tub full of kitchen scraps. Unwanted discards were scattered around in the dirt – it didn’t like potato peels or onion skin, but was very keen on the leftovers of a corn cob, and it nibbled at the yellow bits intently, nomnomnomnomming away, up and down the cob.

And there was a nest of clothes, too. Crowley had never seen his jeans so filthy. He only knew what they _were_ because of the sequin hearts on the pockets. Men’s clothing departments never had anything he liked.

From the pocket of the jeans he was currently wearing, Crowley pulled the brown paper bag full of goose ammunition, things he was prepared to hurl at the goose, either to scare it or bait it. He unravelled the paper top as quietly as he could, moving slow. The goose heard them but ignored them, barely looking up before returning to its feast.

Biting his lip, Crowley re-gripped his net, and gave Aziraphale a ready, if tipsy look. Aziraphale nodded back, cage door unclipped and swung open, prepared to stuff an angry bird inside.

Crowley waited... The goose had its back turned, it wouldn’t see the net coming...

Three...

Two...

The goose lifted its head and Crowley panicked – he turned to Aziraphale and shoved him behind the crates to hide. Aziraphale’s back bumped the stone wall of the arch, dropping the crate – and with the clatter it made, the goose _definitely_ heard them. It beeped in surprise.

At this point Crowley probably should’ve stopped hiding, and picked up his dropped net, and given some instruction about how to herd the goose before it could waddle off.

But at this point the goose was the furthest thing from Crowley’s fuzzy mind as it could possibly be. Crowley’s hands were trussed in Aziraphale’s collar. His chest was pressed close. They were breathing on each other’s lips. Their eyes met; hot, glowing sparkles descended from Crowley’s scalp to his soles. Noses bumped. His breath caught.

Aziraphale, dark-eyed and curious, inched forward, gaze lowering to Crowley’s lips. He must’ve thought Crowley wanted a kiss, because – oh – he delivered. Aziraphale’s lips were soft as rose petals and as sweet as Turkish delight. He pressed and nosed in without hesitation. A hand caught Crowley’s neck in a tender touch, the other landing on Crowley’s waist. Heads turned.

Crowley heard the goose honk. Startled, he stepped out of the kiss, stunned and shaken. He tried to look around but his eyes immediately came back to Aziraphale, that soft shape and that innocent grin and those determined, dusky eyes...

Aziraphale stepped in again and brought Crowley back with both hands in his hair, mouths open, eyes shut, bodies thumping the bridge once again. Crowley’s hand loosened on the brown bag, and it fell – defrosted green peas exploded everywhere. Oblivious, Crowley pressed both hands to the cold, bumpy wall, then slid down, and held Aziraphale’s waist.

The goose snuffled, pattering around, nibbling at peas.

Crowley relaxed into the kiss, smooching deeply, _slowly_, eyelashes fluttering, lips dragging as they turned their heads together. Aziraphale murmured something indistinct, and followed up with another nuzzle, lips pushing and closing and parting against Crowley’s, their evening stubble existing just enough to rasp and prickle. Saliva clicked, and hearts swelled, and Crowley’s breath lost all semblance of rhythm. He shivered his inhales and shuddered his exhales, lost in the softness of his friend and the warmth of his caresses.

Vaguely, at the very back of Crowley’s mind, he knew there was something important he was supposed to be dealing with. Something bird-shaped. Had feathers. Honked a lot. But instead he made out with Aziraphale, because, really, what else did the world exist for? This was all he could do now. All he wanted. Aziraphale held Crowley’s neck and tangled fingers in his hair and they breathed in each other’s humid sighs, unaware of their surroundings.

Honk!

Aziraphale came to his senses, falling from a stuck kiss with a wet snap. His doe eyes searched the curve of the bridge over them, where the ripples of water reflected as they did on the wall. Then he nudged at Crowley’s lips – but pulled back, taking his hand, breathing, “Oh, damn. Look.”

Crowley looked where Aziraphale looked, and saw with a pang of dismay that the goose had taken the brown paper bag in its beak and was swimming downstream too fast to chase after. The water may not have been deep but it was deep enough for two paddling orange flippers.

Realising what Crowley’s distractions had cost them, he stepped back, prickling with the heat of embarrassment. He straightened his crooked t-shirt and busily did up a waistcoat button that had come unpopped.

He then looked at Aziraphale, who if anything appeared even more embarrassed. Aziraphale clutched both blushing cheeks with his hands, his eyes staring into nothing. “How could I have been so _senseless_—”

Personally, Crowley thought the experience had been the opposite of senseless. Even now, every sense he possessed was wailing with overstimulation. He wanted more-more-more but at the same time, he didn’t think he could bear so much as a nose kiss or he’d burst like the bag of green peas.

Looking up at Crowley for assurance, Aziraphale relaxed immediately, apparently relieved to see Crowley’s dopey smile. A sigh escaped Aziraphale, and, after palming his forehead in shame, he bent down and picked up the cat carrier, while Crowley scooped up the now-muddy net. He left his old clothes where they were, supposing the goose would be back for them later. Surely all was not lost.

Crowley and Aziraphale traipsed back home in an uncertain silence, as tired insects whispered in the long grass and the blackbirds sang solos from perches unseen.

Satisfied, yes, both of them were... but there was a certain level of emotional despondency – guilt – that came of having indulged such an intimate exchange when they weren’t supposed to, weren’t clear about its meaning, and couldn’t be sure if it ought to happen again. They’d let themselves go in each other’s company, and it had been a thrill beyond thrills. It was incredible just to trust someone like that. But kissing against walls was the sort of thing people did in films, and Crowley didn’t know what came next, because films either skipped the next part or went in a direction Crowley wasn’t sure about going.

He looked longingly at Aziraphale as they walked, heavy boots crushing the grass stalks back the way they’d come.

“I wasn’t,” Crowley started, hoping to explain himself and alleviate some of the uncertainty. “I wasn’t actually going for a kiss, you know. That’s the thing. Y-You leaned in, and... I just...”

Aziraphale looked at him sharply. He took a breath, then looked away, towards their cottages, where twin lights from inside shone out orange in the new gloom. “Oh,” Aziraphale said. “No, neither was I. I wasn’t going for a kiss.”

Crowley wasn’t sure if his heart leapt or sank. It did something, at any rate. “So... it just happened,” Crowley supposed. “By accident.”

Aziraphale swallowed. “Seems it did.”

But what did that mean? Crowley couldn’t think clearly enough to wonder. Had they felt such a burst of attraction that they couldn’t hold back, or had they just been too tipsy to resist suggestion, and thus a passionate kiss conveyed no romantic intent at all?

Soon they stood between their garden gates, holding the net, holding the cage, holding each other’s eyes.

“Well,” Aziraphale said brightly, but with a shade of trepidation in his eyes. “This’ll be where we part ways, then.”

“Right.” Crowley gulped, eyes on Aziraphale’s lips, then the ground. “We’ll have better luck next time, probably. W-With the goose, I mean. Not with— Y’know. The other thing.”

“Oh, yes, I’m sure,” Aziraphale said.

They lingered.

Aziraphale let go of a sodden, emotional breath. “Crowley, I...”

Crowley looked at him, heart high with hope. “Hm?”

Aziraphale’s smile was too tentative to be enjoyable. “Just wanted to wish you goodnight.”

Crowley forced his own smile too. “Yeah. Okay. ‘Night, angel.”

Aziraphale turned back at the gate, relieved by the term of endearment. “See you tomorrow, then, my dear.”

Crowley watched him go, smiling... for real this time.

  
  



	6. Snack Trap

Even in a few short days, Crowley and Aziraphale had struck up what in hindsight seemed like a routine. They had breakfast together. All their meals, in fact, were to be shared. It seemed like a waste not to. A waste, both of time and food.

And yet today, spurred by a strange, squiggly feeling in the core of Aziraphale’s body, they did not meet up for breakfast. It could only be assumed that Crowley felt equally unsure about how to interact following an unplanned kiss, as he never showed up at Aziraphale’s door. Not for breakfast, brunch, nor lunch.

Aziraphale barely touched his food.

Whether that strange and squiggly feeling was a good sensation or a bad one remained to be seen. He was both worried and excited, but anytime he tried to pinpoint which he really was, he became the other.

Early afternoon arrived, and Aziraphale decided he’d had enough of being alone. He didn’t opt for early retirement and regret it for a whole year only to shy away from a new friend just because of something silly like a crush. He’d acted on his feelings, and he decided there ought not be shame in that. Fifty years of his life had gone by and he’d never acted, and wished he could – so what was so bad about all this, anyway?

Crowley’s presence was a gift. Aziraphale wasn’t about to reject a gift he actually wanted.

Thus, Aziraphale put on his favourite waistcoat, dabbed on some flower-fresh perfume, and went to the end of his back garden, taking heartening breaths all the way there. He turned in the lane and went to Crowley’s gate, determined to set the record straight.

But, as he opened the gate, he supposed his conversation with Crowley would have to wait. His neighbour had company.

Crowley crouched in the middle of his lawn with the four children all around him, all peering into a blue plastic tub. Sun flashed on the tub’s top as Aziraphale approached, and he realised it was full of water.

“Hel-lo, Aziraphale,” Crowley called cheerfully, waving. “Look what we’ve got.”

“Oh, how nifty,” Aziraphale exclaimed, hands together on his middle. He crouched too, admiring the silver fish that swam around in the tub. “What a pretty creature. What are we all doing with this fish, then?”

“Anathema’s making an _aquaponics_ system,” Pepper said. “To rescue all the fish.”

“It’s to clean the water and help restore a natural balance to the waterways,” Adam explained. “We’re doing it in her back garden but we’ll install something bigger in the stream once we know it works.”

“Ah. You’ll have to explain it all to me,” Aziraphale nodded. “It sounds very clever.”

“But—” Crowley hesitated, glancing between the children. “Later.”

The kids exchanged meaningful looks, smug smiles and cheeky grins.

“We’re going to box the goose in,” Brian told Aziraphale. “Set traps all across the village. Crowley’s idea.”

“Oh!” Aziraphale fretted, “They’re nice traps, are they? Not going to _hurt_ the goose?”

Crowley blew a raspberry. “What kind of monsters do you think we are, angel? It’s just food scraps. Bait. You know. Something to entice it.”

“Ah.” Aziraphale smiled.

“Problem is,” Adam mused, “nobody’s seen the goose all day. We’ve asked. Nobody’s shop’s been robbed, no sheds were broken into overnight—”

“No shoes stolen—”

“No roads blocked—”

“It’s like it’s gone completely,” Pepper finished. “And it’s probably really hard to catch a goose that isn’t there to be caught.”

“But you’ll put the food out anyway,” Crowley urged. “Just in case. If I know anything about hungry birds...” his eyes flicked to Aziraphale briefly, “it’s that they can’t ever resist a good feast. The goose’ll be along soon.”

The kids nodded.

Crowley licked his lips, eyes darting to Aziraphale, then to Adam. Crowley then ventured, “You kids’ll... be on your way now? Maybe. Just a suggestion.”

Adam smirked. “Okay.” Brian picked up the tub of water with Wensley’s help, and with a whisper of “Good luck,” from Adam to Crowley, the kids trundled out of the garden and into the lane, out of sight in seconds.

Crowley helped Aziraphale up, wearing a shy smile.

“What’s the good luck for?” Aziraphale asked, holding onto Crowley’s hand until gravity swept it away. “And what were they showing you their fish for, anyhow?”

Crowley rolled a shoulder, hands deep in his pockets. “I enlisted them as my little goose-trap army. They were just on their way to Anathema when I caught them.”

Aziraphale noted that the good luck went unaddressed.

He followed Crowley into the cottage, and without much ado, they set to work making a late lunch together: Aziraphale cooked and chopped and seasoned a baby potato salad, complete with mayonnaise and chopped chives, and Crowley arranged the salad into sandwiches lined with cheese and mustard, and then turned them into toasties, with a panini-type sandwich press which he was very fond of, and Aziraphale was growing more fond of by the day.

With a side of Crowley’s tangy summer greens, they took their luncheon on Aziraphale’s lawn, cross-legged atop a tartan picnic blanket. With a tall carton of grape juice shared between them, and their shoes and socks piled up together on the grass, they ate, then lingered, and lingered some more, then lay back, content to do nothing else.

They talked, of course, but their conversation seemed to float above the breeze and hum below the wings of the bumblebees, and by the time evening came, Aziraphale could not recall a single topic they’d discussed, although they’d discussed it all deeply and at length. He had a copy of his old school reports clutched to his chest, and Crowley was still looking through old artwork over his head, so presumably those had been part of the ever-evolving conversation. But Aziraphale looked at Crowley now, red hair smushed on the blanket, dark glasses perched on his bird nose, and supposed that any time spent together couldn’t ever be time wasted, even if all they did was waste time.

Aziraphale sat up, hands on the blanket, feeling lumpy grass prickle beneath. He heard the hoot of a train and the whistle of its brakes in the far distance, punctuating evening birdsong. The sky had turned a glorious tangerine orange, and all the clouds had fluffed up into the pinkest candy floss.

Crowley glanced at him. “Time for dinner, d’you think?” he asked lazily.

Aziraphale drew a breath. “Ah. No. Well— Yes. But.”

Crowley heard the hesitation and sat up too, turning at the hip, tucking the artwork away neatly so the breeze wouldn’t catch it. “What’s wrong, angel?” he asked.

“Nothing. Not exactly.”

Crowley lifted his sunglasses away and folded them up, yellow eyes peering into Aziraphale’s eyes in turn. Left, right, left, right, as if each eye told a different story.

Aziraphale wet his lips, and shuffled himself comfortable, thighs to the side, weight on one hand, leaning his torso towards Crowley. “About yesterday.”

After a flutter of his lashes, Crowley waited.

“I just wanted to tell you,” Aziraphale said, “Last evening, under the bridge. I really did think you wanted a kiss. I’m not sure if you’re... attracted? to me? but I think, if I’m being perfectly honest, my dear, I may have allowed my attraction to you to get the better of me in my tipsy state...” His fingertips tiptoed around his knee. “And I wanted to tell you that I’m sorry. Terribly sorry. I never wanted to make you uncomfortab—”

He stopped talking, as Crowley’s lips had touched the side of his mouth.

They broke apart, gazing tenderly at each other.

Crowley wore a dopey smile. “Don’t want an apology, angel,” he murmured. “Jusssst another kiss.”

Aziraphale’s heart sang like a blackbird. “Oh,” he sighed. Then he shut his eyes and fell close, hand on Crowley’s cheek as he made good on Crowley’s wish.

  
  


Aziraphale sat on his well-padded storage ottoman under the upstairs window of his bedroom. It was a wide, two-panel window, and it overlooked his back garden neatly. From here, he could see the ink of oncoming dusk staining the sky indigo, dark clouds mottled across a dimming sky. The garden was all but an indistinct shadowy blur, but as he could see the shape of a broken white deck chair in Crowley’s adjacent garden, he could be sure he’d see a white goose if it came along.

Suddenly the round, fluffy black shape of his Aziraphale’s reflection in the window pane vanished, no longer boxed by the orange doorway to his room. Now he could see out even better.

“Here,” Crowley said, bare footsteps coming closer. Aziraphale’s skin prickled as he felt a blanket tucked around him. “You want a drink or something?”

Aziraphale looked up, smiling, shaking his head.

Crowley flung himself down next to Aziraphale, pyjama pants thin enough that Aziraphale felt the burning heat of his thighs and saw the delicate, hairy ankles that peeked out below a short hem. Crowley drank his wine, breathing out and fogging the glass. He gulped, then offered the glass to Aziraphale.

“We mustn’t get drunk again,” Aziraphale said firmly. But he took the glass anyway. “We’re on a stakeout, Crowley, and it’s very important that we have our wits about us.” He drank, then drank again. “We can’t be distracted.”

Crowley took the wine and put it down on the floorboards, very sensibly. “Don’t think the wine’s our biggest distraction, angel,” he said, smoothly. With a secretive smile, he nudged his shoulder against Aziraphale’s. “I ever tell you you smell nice?”

Aziraphale blushed. “No, you never did.”

“Hm.” Crowley pursed his lips. “Well, you do.”

Aziraphale melted closer, admiring the angular shapes of Crowley’s face, blue in a black world, pinpoints of light in his attentive eyes.

“Dear,” Aziraphale asked, “may I put my head on your shoulder? It might not be that late but I am rather sleepy.”

Crowley seemed to withhold a whimper. “Fff ‘course, angel,” he whispered. He offered his shoulder. “Don’t even ask.”

Aziraphale felt a tension flare away from him as his cheek touched down to Crowley’s silk pyjama top. After all this time he’d spent thinking it was too intimate a gesture, and resisting – he realised now it was all that and more. Intimate and soft, and thrice as exciting as it ought to be.

Crowley set a hand in Aziraphale’s hair and scrunched, lightly massaging Aziraphale’s scalp with his fingertips. “Sleep if you want. I’ll keep an eye out. Wake you up if I see anything.”

“Hmm...” Aziraphale nuzzled. “You must’ve made a _terrible_ criminal, Crowley,” he sighed.

“Ey?” Crowley’s grin was audible around that little noise of questioning. “What makes you say that?”

“You’re too _nice_,” Aziraphale said. Crowley stiffened with discomfort, but as Aziraphale sank into a pleasant, sleepy blur, Crowley relaxed, and let out a breath, and lay his cheek on Aziraphale’s head.

“Nice,” Crowley said to himself.

He pondered the concept for a while.

Eventually he shut his eyes.

Nice.

Nice was... nice. Aziraphale was nice. Smelled nice, too. Lunch was nice. Cuddling as the stars came out was nice.

Crowley could live with ‘nice’.

The word barely meant anything once he thought about it enough.

  
  


Crowley’s eyelids flicked open when he heard a snuffle. His serpentine stare pinpointed movement in the dark garden: a wriggling at the gate. The gate was jostled, and then in popped a long white neck, followed by a brown body, dropping back to the path once it was over the wooden bar.

It waddled closer, closer.

The floodlight came on, but the bird was undeterred.

“Hey.” Crowley gave Aziraphale’s cheek a pat-pat-pat. “Angel, it’s here. Wake up.”

Aziraphale moaned, nuzzling against Crowley’s neck, and wrapping both arms around him. “Nnnnn.”

“Angel, the goose!”

“Goose?” Aziraphale grunted. “Hmm not hungry.”

Crowley tutted. “Well, _it_ is.” He leaned forward, and Aziraphale slipped off his shoulder, jolted awake. “It’s found the food scraps! Knew it was a good idea to cut the crusts off the toasties. Wholegrain. Geese are really into wholegrain.”

Aziraphale was rubbing his sleepy eyes with his fists. “Hm.”

Crowley leaned to smooch his cheek. “Come on.” He offered a hand. “Let’s go catch that bastard.”

Aziraphale pouted, but got up. He shuffled along behind Crowley, grumpy and slow.

They took up their net and their cage from the kitchen, and with slippered feet, they crept to the back door. Crowley opened it in perfect silence...

They went out into the cool night, skin shining silver in the floodlight. There was the beast: gobbling with its head in the scrap box, fat body turned away from them.

Crowley and Aziraphale exchanged a preparatory glance. Aziraphale nodded, ready with the cage. Crowley redoubled his grip on the net.

And...

Swoosh! Crowley swept the net down over the goose’s head.

It pecked at the net, trying to get the sandwich crusts, but nommed on the netting instead, which ripped immediately, being a frail type, and no match for a goose.

“Oi,” Crowley said. “Don’t eat that, goose, you’ll choke.”

“In here,” Aziraphale said, offering the cage, clapped down solidly on the paving.

Crowley stepped around the goose and began herding it with fluttering hands, but it didn’t seem especially reactive. Once it figured out it couldn’t eat the net, it plopped down to sit, and just... sat. And sat. And did nothing.

Crowley frowned. “Do you think it’s okay?”

“It does seem to have eaten an awful lot,” Aziraphale noted, recalling that the scrap box had been quite full earlier that evening. If it hadn’t been hedgehogs or foxes or badgers making off with their sandwich crusts, that goose must have a very full tummy.

Crowley cautiously lifted the net.

The goose stayed put.

It yawned.

Then it began to preen, nibbling at his back feathers, turning one strip of them from brown back to white.

Aziraphale and Crowley stood side-by-side in the floodlight, the curiously well-behaved goose at their feet, utterly confounded over what to do next.

“All this time,” Crowley wondered, “do you think it was just... hungry?”

“It shouldn’t be,” Aziraphale said worriedly. “They find their own food in the wild, they shouldn’t rely on people to feed them. Not unless—”

“Not unless their natural food supply’s being gradually depleted... or poisoned.”

“Geese don’t exactly eat fish.”

“But they eat beetles, angel. And I’d imagine a Tadfield Goose would eat a Tadfield Lawn Beetle quite happily. Mostly they eat grass, don’t they? And everyone in town’s been drenching their grass in bloody pesticides.”

Aziraphale snuck a hand to hold Crowley’s. “What if the pesticides are poisoning the goose too? What if it’s acting so strangely... not because it’s protecting a nest, but because—?”

They shared a grim smile.

Crowley sighed, head down. “Must’ve been desperate. Trying to communicate with us. We’re all idiots.”

“Yes. Except Anathema,” Aziraphale said. “And the children are certainly onto something, too.”

He crouched down, reaching out a hand to touch the goose. It lifted its head in alarm, tried to peck him – but didn’t try especially hard. It yawned again, showing all its teeth, then lay its head on its back and closed its eyes to sleep.

Aziraphale stood up again.

“Angel,” Crowley said speculatively. “What if— Look, say I’m bonkers, but – what if we... fed it. Fed the goose. Gave it a healthy goose diet, until we can convince that R.P. Tyler to leave the grass alone.”

Aziraphale folded his arms. “Like a pet?”

“A community pet,” Crowley said. “I mean, it’s not _our_ mad goose. It’s everyone’s mad goose.”

A soft smile rose on Aziraphale’s face. “Well, it is _sort_ of our mad goose. We should we name it.”

“Name it? Name it what?”

  
  



	7. Dastardly Bastards, Afterwards

In Tadfield’s village square, a new luncheon-only sandwich shop opened up a few weeks before the end of summer. _The Dippy Goose_, said the swinging sign over the door. On it was a painting of a white goose pegging shoes on a washing line. It was definitely Aziraphale’s style of art, although he’d progressed with some effort from watercolours to wood paint.

There was a pond in the centre of the square now. It used to be a raised stone flowerbed, but the folks at the village meeting had decided a pond would be more useful. Dippy paddled in happy circles around the fountain in the middle, waggling her tail and thinking goosey thoughts. Below her white belly, two dozen small fish enjoyed their clean water detox.

Anathema and four familiar children sat at the sides of the pond, planting another row of carrots in the water. The animal waste fed the plants, and the plants filtered the water, and everyone was happy. Five more weeks and the kids would have installed a similar system in every waterway in and out of Lower Tadfield. It would take years to heal the damage to the ecosystem, but Anathema would be damned if they didn’t do what they could to make things better in the meantime.

Dippy hadn’t opened a gate in almost two months now, but she did sometimes steal baby shoes. They were just easier to pull off feet, that was all. She kept a small collection of socks in places unknown.

Crowley never saw that cherry-patterned sock again, but didn’t mind mismatched socks. These days he wore one cherry sock and one kiwifruit sock... in no small part because the combination of black and yellow drove Aziraphale crazy. There were few pleasures in life greater than driving Aziraphale crazy. The best part was that Crowley hadn’t figured out if he hated or loved the socks.

Inside the brown wooden shadows of _The Dippy Goose_, Crowley lounged on a barstool, arms hooked over the bar, chin on the wood. He waved his wine glass and murmured, “C’moooonnn, angel, just one more.”

“No.” Aziraphale bopped Crowley gently on the nose like a misbehaving animal. “You’ve had _quite_ enough.”

Crowley pouted, watching Aziraphale spoon-trail gourmet balsamic sauce across the top of an exquisite cheese toastie, topped with a sprig of rosemary. “Just one,” Crowley begged. “Just onnnnne.”

“Don’t be _silly_, Crowley, we’re _working_,” Aziraphale said. He put the completed plate on the bar beside Crowley. “Now take that to Ms. Potts and Mr. Shadwell at table three, please. Then come back to fetch their drinks.”

“Can I have another one when I come back?”

Aziraphale rolled his eyes, smiling. “Maybe.”

Maybe meant yes when Aziraphale said it, Crowley knew that much. With a happy grin, he set aside his empty wine glass and carried the plate to their customers.

“Thanks, love,” Marjorie said, as Crowley served her lunch. “Ooh, isn’t _this_ fancy.”

Shadwell grunted. “Couldn’a had such a thing at home? I tell yeh, jezebel, we’re better off leavin’ these great southern pansies to eat their aen culinary decadence. Thar’s nae need for it here.”

“Oh, but Mr. S, isn’t it pretty!” Marjorie gave Crowley a big smile. “You must be so proud, Mr. Crowley. Bet you thought retirement would be all sore feet and daytime television, didn’t you?”

Crowley shrugged. “We found things to do.”

“Dare say yeh did,” Shadwell grumbled darkly. “Great southern pansies.”

Crowley winked at him, then sauntered off, grinning as he folded himself over the bar again. “Nowwww can I have one?”

Aziraphale gave him two wine glasses and a bottle of red. “Table three please.”

Crowley pouted and whined.

Aziraphale sighed, affectionate warmth in his eyes. “Go on,” he encouraged, with a shooing motion. “Then you can have _one_ more.”

Crowley practically ran across the tiny restaurant and dunked the bottle and two glasses by Shadwell’s arm, then flew back to Aziraphale and leaned all the way over the bar, wine glass snatched up to keep it from falling.

Aziraphale tutted. “Eager, aren’t you?”

Crowley gazed at him pleadingly.

Aziraphale melted, shoulders sinking down in his waistcoat. Eyes blazing with love, he cradled Crowley’s cheeks in both hands and gave him a long, tender kiss on the lips. Crowley purred, relaxing at the touch.

With a soft breath, Aziraphale eased back. “There,” he said. “Happy now?”

Crowley held his chin up with a fist, a wobbly grin on his lips, all of him a soppy mess. “The happiest, angel.” He put his wine glass down with a shaky hand.

  
  


They only ran the sandwich shop for lunches and parties, because Aziraphale had no plans to become a full-time chef, and really, like Crowley said, there may have been millions of combinations to make a toasted sandwich, but there were only twelve things Crowley could do with a bowl of Anathema’s vegetables, and he did get bored easily. With their households and life savings (stealings?) combined, it wasn’t like they were short on cash – they just made sandwiches for _fun_. They kept the business side of their lives light, so there was ample space in their schedules to do other things.

...Other things, like sit quietly in the sun while evening came down around them, their contrasting forms snuggled together on the outdoor furniture. Crowley held Aziraphale’s hand with both of his own, filing his nails for him. Aziraphale rested his cheek on Crowley’s shoulder, trying not to fall asleep.

Aziraphale stirred, hearing young voices coming along down Whistlethwerp Lane. “Is it that time already?” he asked, wondering how a whole week had tiptoed past with naught but sandwiches, smiles, and sunshine to look back on. “My-my.”

The gate at the end of their garden swung wide, and Anathema stood by, holding it open as Dippy came waddling in, proud as anything. The four youngsters came in after, and Anathema brought up the rear.

“Your turn again,” Adam said, following Dippy up to the patio. “She gulped down all the duckweed so she probably won’t eat much.”

“You underestimate the capacity of her stomach,” Crowley uttered, rounding off Aziraphale’s pinkie nail. “I saw her gobble up a half a punnet of strawberries earlier.”

Dippy began nibbling at Aziraphale’s toes, and Crowley muttered, “Alright, al_right_, I’m getting to it, stop nagging. I’m doing his fingers first. Blehehhhh.”

The children tittered, while Aziraphale smiled shyly, curling his bare toes.

Dippy lost interest in toes, and went to examine the lawn. Crowley had not used an ounce of product on his and Aziraphale’s garden, yet it grew in flourishes and twirls, vines and flowers spreading out and going on strong, with the whip-like saplings of fruit trees still taking to their new homes. There were the occasional brown patches in the grass, but Crowley gritted his teeth and bore with it, as he would tolerate a few Tadfield Lawn Beetles if it meant Dippy had something to peck at. She was a big fan of Lawn Beetles. She didn’t always eat them, but she liked chasing them – head down, neck long, fat middle wobbling about as she zoomed around.

“Come on,” Anathema said to the kids, a hand on Wensley’s shoulder. “We can look at the garden tomorrow, when it’s light.”

“Oh, yes!” Aziraphale sat up properly. “Do come by, we can have dinner.” He glanced at Crowley. “Yes?”

Crowley smiled. “Hey, you’re the one who promised I’d never be lonely. Can’t fault you for following through.”

“Tomorrow evening, then,” Anathema agreed.

“All of you,” Crowley said, nodding to the kids. “And your parents.”

“Good Heavens, Crowley, we’ll never fit them all in the cottage.”

Crowley rolled a shoulder. “The village hall?”

Anathema grinned. “Make it a movie night. Get Newt to run something fun over the projector.”

“Aw yessss,” the kids hissed.

Aziraphale clapped his hands and rubbed them gleefully, while Crowley began plotting which flavours of ice-cream he’d be bringing. He’d wanted a good excuse to mix lime with dark chocolate.

After a few minutes of intrepid garden investigation, the kids headed back for the gate, calling farewells and waving to the goose. Anathema waved last to Aziraphale and Crowley, and the five of them went on their way, chattering excitedly about tomorrow night.

“Movie night,” Crowley uttered, getting back to Aziraphale’s fingernails. “You and me, a goose, two lanky nerds and a gaggle of children. Who would’ve thought.”

“Families never look like one thing,” Aziraphale advised, most sagely. “Sometimes there _are_ geese. I’m perfectly happy with it. Are you happy with it?”

Crowley snorted. “How could I not be?” He finished Aziraphale’s hand, then held it, fingers interlocked. He stroked the side of it with his thumb. “Can’t think of anyone around here who’s _not_ overjoyed to see all the chaotic mess making sense at last.”

“I’ll name you one person,” Aziraphale said warily, eyes set on a figure coming down the lane, stomping, preceded by a trotting canine of very short stature.

R.P. Tyler shot them a death glare over the hedge. Aziraphale and Crowley gave their most pleasant smiles in return, wriggling their fingers in sarcastic greetings.

R.P. Tyler did not like the goose. He did not like the aquaponics systems blighting every stream and river around the village. He did not like the sandwich shop (1. irregular hours, 2. seemed to be a bookshop also, which was confusing, 3. popped up too quickly to get used to first), nor did R.P. Tyler like the brown patches on everyone’s lawn but his own, nor the fact there were fish everywhere but the rivers, because people had taken to rescuing them and putting them in filtered ponds and tanks instead of fishing for dinner. R.P. Tyler did not like seeing an empty cottage that Crowley was legally not allowed to sell yet because he didn’t own it and couldn’t explain why. R.P. Tyler did not like everyone outvoting him at village meetings. R.P. Tyler did not like movie nights. Or happy couples. Or the goose.

Aziraphale and Crowley kept smiling until R.P. Tyler was gone, and then they fell back to their comfortable evening cuddle, nuzzling each other’s cheeks and forgetting to think.

Crowley peeked open one lazy yellow eye, cast around until he saw Dippy chewing something that wasn’t food.

“Oi!” Crowley lurched at the bird and snatched back Aziraphale’s newest paintings. “Go eat a beetle, you daft scamp. Bugger off.” He flapped at the goose. The goose flapped back, honking.

Crowley sighed and lay back on the lounge chair’s recline, peering at the watercolour drawings. He smiled, realising Aziraphale had drawn Dippy from memory, and – as Crowley lowered the page – the outline matched Dippy’s true shape perfectly, as she puttered around, nipping at moths.

“Just needs a floppy hat,” Crowley said, winking one eye as he imagined a hat. “Or a tiny pair of devil horns.”

A sly, sneaky smile began to crawl up his face.

“Oh _no_,” Aziraphale said, seeing that smile. “What dastardly scheme is brewing in that flaming head of yours, now?”

“R.P. Tyler,” Crowley said with disgust.

“What about him?”

“_He_ hasn’t had a visit from Dippy in two months. Seems a shame, doesn’t it, that everyone else gets to... enjoy her. While poor Mr. Tyler... oh, all _alone_, angel, just him and his wife and that tiny dog... No goose ransacking his larder... No goose upturning his laundry room... and chasing his tiny dog... No goose at all...”

Aziraphale pretended to be affronted at the implication, but couldn’t help smirking. “You are so terribly naughty, Crowley.”

“Mm.” Crowley put a kiss on Aziraphale’s forehead. “I’m going to R.P. Tyler’s house and shoving a goose through his window. If you think it’s so terrible, angel... I dare you to stop me.”

Aziraphale drew a slow breath. “Mr. Tyler’s going to come and ask questions in the morning. Where’s the goose, he’ll ask. How could we be so careless as to let her out of our sight, he’ll ask. Someone ought to be able to prove the goose was here all along, don’t you think?” Aziraphale said. “Say, if I had a painting done, the sort that could only be painted if I had a goose here, right in front of me...”

Crowley rolled his eyes. “Never gonna work. I mean, you could do it, but where’s the fun in it?”

“Then what would you suggest?”

“Screw having an alibi. He’ll see through anything in a second. So come with me. We’ll throw the goose in then run like Hell.”

Aziraphale looked at Crowley with a twitch in his smile. “Someday you’re going to get me in a lot of trouble, my dear.”

Crowley’s eyes twinkled, and he leaned down for another delicious kiss, this time on the lips. “No point being an angel if you can’t take the halo off sometimes,” he whispered, taking another smooch. “Just like there’s no point breaking the law, if you can’t prove your heart was in the right place all along. Pays to be nice, sometimes.” He booped Aziraphale on the nose. “Just as it pays to be naughty, mm?”

Aziraphale sighed, somehow smiling and frowning at once. Of all the things Crowley expected him to say, he didn’t expect a content sigh of, “I love retirement.”

Crowley grinned. Love it they may, but they both knew this perfect time in their lives would be nowhere near as fun without the reflective company of each other. So they cherished each wild little moment with all their hearts, grateful for all of it.

Finally Crowley got up, and held out a hand. He offered unabashed mischief and mayhem in that hand.

Aziraphale barely hesitated. He took it. “Perhaps, these days, Crowley,” he said, as he got to his feet, “_you and I_ are the dreaded Canard Cartel. Isn’t _that_ funny.”

Aziraphale put on his sandals, and hand-in-hand, they walked to the end of their garden, Dippy following behind them, hoping they had food. The three of them made their way down the lane as evening fell completely, soft and lilac all around.

**{ the end }**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ☆ [reblog art](https://almaasi.tumblr.com/post/188118338920/bastard-goose-v-flash-bastard-x-just-enough-of-a)  
☆ [reblog fic](https://almaasi.tumblr.com/post/188118450190/blame-it-on-the-goose)
> 
> _honk honk!! kudos?? honk honk_ ♡
> 
> Here’s [all my other Good Omens fics](https://archiveofourown.org/works?utf8=%E2%9C%93&commit=Sort+and+Filter&work_search%5Bsort_column%5D=revised_at&include_work_search%5Brelationship_ids%5D%5B%5D=575567&work_search%5Bother_tag_names%5D=&work_search%5Bexcluded_tag_names%5D=&work_search%5Bcrossover%5D=&work_search%5Bcomplete%5D=&work_search%5Bwords_from%5D=&work_search%5Bwords_to%5D=&work_search%5Bdate_from%5D=&work_search%5Bdate_to%5D=&work_search%5Bquery%5D=&work_search%5Blanguage_id%5D=&user_id=almaasi), a collection which is rapidly growing! (May require a butterfly net and cat carrier to wrangle in the near future.) And [the rest is Destiel](https://archiveofourown.org/works?utf8=%E2%9C%93&commit=Sort+and+Filter&work_search%5Bsort_column%5D=revised_at&include_work_search%5Brelationship_ids%5D%5B%5D=5672&work_search%5Bother_tag_names%5D=&work_search%5Bexcluded_tag_names%5D=&work_search%5Bcrossover%5D=&work_search%5Bcomplete%5D=&work_search%5Bwords_from%5D=&work_search%5Bwords_to%5D=&work_search%5Bdate_from%5D=&work_search%5Bdate_to%5D=&work_search%5Bquery%5D=&work_search%5Blanguage_id%5D=&user_id=almaasi), if that’s your thing.
> 
> Elmie x


End file.
